



feapffciasiwii 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf.ZBS-.t05' 
-H3 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Che Bethany e. £. Ijand-ftooR Series : 

(J. Z. TYLER, General Editor.) 

CONSISTING OF A SERIES OF SMALL 
BOOKS ALONG THE LINES OF BIBLE 
STUDY, THE STUDY OF MISSIONS, AND 
THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY AND 
PURPOSES OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST; 
DESIGNED ESPECIALLY FOR THEIR 
CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR SOCIETIES, AND 
PREPARED UNDER THE APPROVAL OF 
THE GENERAL CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY 
CONVENTION. .'. .'. .*. .'. .\ .*. 






FIRST SERIES : 



i. Rand-book for Bible Study 

BY 

J. W. McGARVEY, 

President of the College of the Bible in 
Kentucky University. 

ii. Rand-book Concerning the Disciples 

BY 

B. B. TYLER. 

Author of the History of the Disciples of 

Christ in the American Church 

History Series. 

in. Rand-book of missions 

BY 

A. McLEAN, 

Corresponding Secretary of the Foreign 
Christian Missionary Society. 



/ , IjanMooR Series for the 
/ Bethany €. €. Reading Courses 



8B 



H Guide to Bible Study 

BY 

J. W. McGARVEY, 

President College of the Bible in Kentucky 
University. 



EDITED BY 

HERBERT L. WILLETT 

LEADER OF BIBLE STUDY IN THE BETHANY C. E. 
READING COURSES. 



/v 



as 



Published by 

tbe Reading Course Committee 

m Republic Street 

Cleveland, Obio 






3Sfcor 



Copyright, 1897, 
By J. Z. TYLER, Chairman. 



Printed by the 
Julia A. Andrews Fund. 






The National Convention of the Disciples 
of Christ, held in Springfield, Illinois, 
October 16-23, 1896, adopted the following 
recommendations : 

" 1. That this convention approve the idea of 
adding, within certain limits, the educational 
feature to the Christian Endeavor Societies among 
us. This added educational feature shall include 
helps for the systematic reading of the Bible, a 
selected course of reading concerning missions in 
general, and our own missions in particular, and 
thorough instruction as to the origin, the prin- 
ciples, and the history of our own movement for 
the restoration of New Testament Christianity. 

2. That this convention approve of the pur- 
pose to provide a series of hand-books for our 
young people covering the field not already satis- 
factorily covered." 



INTRODUCTION. 



The indications of a revival of interest in the 
study of the Bible are numerous and encouraging. 
They are to be found in the increase of private and 
devotional reading of the Scriptures, the improve- 
ment of lesson helps for the Sunday School, the more 
conscientious preparation of the lesson among teach- 
ers in such schools, the increase of exegetical preach- 
ing, the organization of courses of Bible study in 
young people's societies in nearly all religious bodies, 
the increase of correspondence Bible work, the crea- 
tion of Biblical departments in colleges and univer- 
sities, the establishment of Biblical instruction in 
connection with state universities, and the organiza- 
tion of clubs and circles for the study of Biblical liter- 
ature as possessing equal attractiveness with English 
and other literatures. 

The study of the Bible is absolutely necessary to 
the development of the Christian life. The facts 






8 INTRODUCTION. 

which the Scriptures present are basis of faith in the 
Christ and in the whole series of providential events 
which prepared the way for his final disclosure of the 
life and purposes of God. Only by acquaintance with 
these facts and the prophetic, devotional and horta- 
tory discourses and meditations to which they gave 
occasion is one able to understand the Old and New 
Testaments as the records of our holy faith. The 
necessity of a daily return to the Scriptures as a means 
of spiritual nourishment and culture is the more ap- 
parent when one notes the fact that a great part of 
our religious life is made up of activities. This is 
true of the young people, whose organizations with 
their various committees and departments lay empha- 
sis on service; it is true of the maturer members of 
the church, before whom is constantly placed the re- 
sponsibility for the active ministries to which the 
gospel calls; and particularly is this true of mission- 
ary workers, pastors, teachers and others whose lives 
are consecrated to Christian service. Where the vis- 
ible ministries of the church are so largely devoted 
to the expenditure of spiritual vitality there must be 
some means of nourishment and recuperation. This 
is provided in the reading and study of the Word of 
God, and the atmosphere of prayer in which these 
privileges should be enjoyed. The nourishment of 
the Scriptures is as necessary to the spiritual life as 
that of food to the body. 



INTRODUCTION. ;. 9 

This hand-book is designed to afford suggestion 
and assistance to those who desire a fuller and more 
accurate knowledge of the Bible. It gives a brief 
summary of facts regarding the making and the pur- 
pose of the Bible; its chief divisions; short sketches of 
the various books, serving as introductions to their 
study; and various other material of an interesting 
and helpful sort to the reader and student of the 
Bible. The book has its purposes and its limitations. 
The former have been noted. The latter were set 
by the desire to put all the material into such a brief 
and convenient form that the little volume could be 
in reality what its name implies, a hand-book, con- 
stantly kept at hand for reference and suggestion. 

A few suggestions as to a method of Bible read- 
ing and study may be found profitable. 

i . Use the Revised Version of the Bible if pos- 
sible. It is much superior to the Authorized or King 
James Version, not only because of its better inter- 
pretation of particular words and passages, but be- 
cause the translators of 1881-1884 availed themselves 
of many principles of interpretation unknown to 
those of 161 1. The Revised Version is not perfect, 
but it is a long advance over its predecessor and is 
gradually coming to take its place with those who 
desire to possess the best version of the Scriptures. 
There may be a feeling of reluctance on the part of 
those who have long used the older translation at 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

the thought of giving up its familiar phrases, but 
one who has before him the most of his career as a 
Bible student cannot afford to deprive himself of the 
advantages resulting from the use of the Revised 
Version. 

2. The Bible should be studied with a good map 
at hand for constant reference showing the localities, 
which were the scenes of the events recorded. If 
possible some good work on Biblical Geography 
should be at hand. One is never able so thoroughly 
to realize any event of which the Bible speaks, i. e. 
to make it real to himself, as when he visits the spot 
in person, or by the assistance of a good description 
of the place, or possesses even a map to show its loca- 
tion and relation to other localities. Almost any good 
edition of the Bible, either of the Authorized or 
the Revised Version, contains a set of maps. They 
should be constantly used till the student is thor- 
oughly acquainted with Biblical localities. 

3. Some general plan of Biblical chronology 
should be used for frequent reference. No system 
thus far devised is altogether satisfactory, because the 
writers of the Bible were not particularly concerned 
about dates and give them usually in relation to other 
events, so that one is often able only to approximate 
the real time of an event. The chronology employed 
in the margin of the Authorized Version was that of 
Archbishop Ussher, and has been found quite unsatis- 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

factory in many particulars as judged by light thrown, 
especially on Old Testament events, by recent re- 
searches among the records of nations with which 
Israel came into contact. An outline chronology of 
the leading periods and events in the Biblical history 
is given in the appendix to this handbook. Exact- 
ness of date is neither possible nor necessary in many 
cases, but a plan of dates relatively correct should be 
mastered by every student. 

4. The gradual character of the Biblical revela- 
tion should be firmly impressed in the beginning of 
any study of the Scriptures. The divine purposes 
were disclosed only as they could be understood. A 
nation was chosen to be the channel of that revela- 
tion, and its education was to that end; not for its 
own sake, but for the world. The Old Testament is 
the record of that national discipline. Not every- 
thing could be taught at once, but only step by step 
could advance be made. Progress is seen through the 
whole of the Old Testament dispensation in the dis- 
closure of truth and its embodiment in character, in 
preparation for the appearance of the Christ. The 
New Testament is the record of his manifestation to 
the world; of the gradual spread of the Gospel, and 
of the helps to the progressive realization of the 
Christian life. 

5. The student should seek such familiarity with 
the books of the Bible that their names, groupings 






12 INTRODUCTION. 

and contents can be instantly recalled. These items 
are all important. The knowledge of the names of 
the books of the Bible in their order is indispensable 
and easily acquired. To assist in the possession of 
this knowledge, and to render it still more accurate 
and detailed, it should be remembered that the Old 
Testament books fall into three groups, which, speak- 
ing in general terms, may be called (I) historical, 17; 
(II) poetical, 5 ; (III) prophetic, 17 ; 39 in all. In the 
New Testament there are also three groups; (I) his- 
torical, the Gospels and Acts, 5 ; (II) didactic, the 
Epistles, 21 ; (III) apocalyptic, Revelation, 1 ; 27 in all, 
a total of 66 in the Bible. Then in the study of a par- 
ticular book its plan and contents must be secured. 
The ability to "think through' ' a book, i. e., to recall 
the general line of thought through its chapters, is 
the only knowledge that can satisfy the real Bible 
student. 

6. The memorizing of portions of Scripture is a 
practice that should be followed, and whose results 
will be most satisfactory both as a means of a better 
understanding of the Bible and as aids to the religi- 
ous life. The habit of committing to memory a pas- 
sage of Scripture daily is easily acquired, and pres- 
ently the mind is stored with the most precious 
utterances of the ages. 

7. References in the New Testament to passages 
in the Old Testament should be carefully searched 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

out, and incidents narrated in different places should 
be compared. This may usually be done with the aid 
of the references found in the Authorized Version, 
but unfortunately the system there adopted often runs 
to fantastic lengths, references being sometimes given 
on the basis of quite superficial resemblance. One's 
own references, neatly set down on the margin of his 
Bible in the light of careful study, will always be 
found the most helpful. 

8. In short, the ability to do one's own study 
and come upon one's own results is the goal of all 
methods. Notes of work done should be made. 
Condensations and paraphrases of passages may be 
made with profit. " A lead pencil is the best of all 
commentators." A note-book should be in constant 
use. Results may be written on the margin of the 
Bible page in ink. Many systems of * 'Bible mark- 
ing" have been devised. Few are of any value 
except to those who devise them ; but any good 
method of preserving results, worked out by the 
student himself, will prove of value. 

9. The use of any helps that may be within reach 
is advisable. But they should be used as helps, and 
not usurp the place of the Bible itself. After all, it 
is the Bible we are to study, and no mere study of 
books can compensate for a failure to study first and 
constantly the Book. 

10. The use to be made of this hand-book will 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

suggest itself to every student. In taking up the 
study of any book, read that book carefully. Then 
read the material on that book in the following pages. 
After this read the material on the other books of 
the same group, that the surroundings of the particu- 
lar book may be obtained. From these readings a 
knowledge of its date, or that of its events, will be 
secured, which may be supplemented by the chrono- 
logical material furnished in the appendix. Then 
read the book through at a single sitting if possible, 
to get its leading ideas. After this make an outline 
of its contents, and lastly turn to the questions on 
the book in the appendix and write out full answers 
to them. The results of such a use of this little book 
will render it of value to every one so using it, and 
will amply justify its preparation. 

HERBERT Iv. Wm,ETT. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 7 

I. Definitions 17 

II. Divisions of the Old Testament 19 

III. The Original Text and its Preservation 22 

IV. Outline of the Pentateuch 24 

V. Israel's History from the death of Moses to that of 

David 33 

VI. The Reign of Solomon and the Divisions of the King- 
dom 43 

VII. The Two Kingdoms 46 

VIII. The Kingdom of Judah Continued 53 

IX. Other Pre-Exilian Prophetic Books 58 

X. The Poetical Books 66 

XI. The Books of Exile 76 

XII. The Post-Exilic Books 80 

XIII. Divisions of the New Testament 91 

XIV. The Gospels and Acts 92 

XV. The Epistles of Paul 104 

XVI. The Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse 123 

XVII. A Brief Review 134 

XVIII. Questions 140 



APPENDIX. 



I. Early Translations of the Scriptures ■ 150 

II. Translations of the Scriptures into English 151 

III. Extra Canonical Books 152 

IV. Outline of the History of Israel 153 

V. Leading Prophets of the Old Testament 154 

VI. Important Events in the Life of Christ 155 

VII. Outline of the Journeys and Labors of the Apostle 

Paul 156 

VIII. Chronological Order of the Books of the New Testa- 
ment 159 



A Guide to Bible Study. 



CHAPTER I. 

DEFINITIONS. 

The word Bible is derived from the Greek 
word biblos y which means book. Used as a 
title it means The Book, so called by way of 
pre-eminence. This title is not found in the 
Bible itself; but it came into use among be- 
lievers after the Bible was completed. 

The titles, Old Testament and New Testa- 
ment, also came into use after the completion 
of the Bible. The books which pass under 
the latter title contain a new covenant which 
God made with men, while those under the 
former contain the old covenant which he made 
with Israel at Mount Sinai (Heb. viii: 6 i3;Jer. 
xxxi: 31-34). In the Latin Bible the word for 
covenant is translated Testamentum; and from 



18 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

this, at a time when the Latin Bible was the 
most read in Europe, the title Testament came 
into its present use. 

The title Scriptures, sometimes with the 
prefix Holy, is a New Testament title for the 
books of the Old Testament. In II Peter iii: 16 
it is also applied by implication to the Epistles 
of Paul; and it soon came into use as a title 
for the whole Bible. The word means writ- 
ings, and in its first sense it could be applied 
to any writings; but as the expression, The 
Book, came to mean one particular book, so 
the expression, The Scriptures, came to mean 
The Writings in the Bible. When the term 
Holy is prefixed, this still further distinguishes 
these writings. 

The apostles Paul and Peter both use the 
title "Oracles of God," for the Old Testament 
books, and Stephen calls them "The Living 
Oracles" (Rom. iii: 2; Heb. v: 12; I Pet. iv: 11; 
Acts vii: 38). By oracles is meant utterances of 
God; and these books were so called, because 
they contain utterances of God through in- 
spired men. They are called living oracles; 
because of their abiding power in contrast with 
the deadness of heathen oracles. But if the 
Old Testament books are worthy of this title, 
still more are those of the New Testament; 



DIVISIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 19 

and consequently Papias, a Christian writer 
of the second century, applies it to Matthew's 
book, saying " Matthew wrote the Oracles/' 
This is especially true of Matthew, because 
more than half of his book is composed of 
speeches made by Jesus. It is entirely proper 
then to speak of the whole Bible as The 
Oracles of God, or The Living Oracles. 



CHAPTER II. 

DIVISIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

Every intelligent person knows that the 
Bible is not one continuous book, but it is made 
up of a number of books, differing from one 
another in subject matter and literary form. 
Some are books of history, some of prophecy, 
some of precept or doctrine, and some of 
poetry. They are also distinguished with ref- 
erence to the time in which they were written, 
and the purposes which they were intended to 
serve. In order to read them intelligibly it is 
necessary to take notice of all these distinctions. 

The first five books (let the reader here 
commit their names to memory if he has not 



20 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

already done so), are commonly grouped under 
the title, The Pentateuch, 1 a Greek word 
which means a five-fold book. 

Next we have twelve historical books, con- 
taining a connected history of Israel from the 
death of Moses to the restoration after the 
Babylonian captivity. The reader should com- 
mit their names to memory. Two of these, 
First and Second Chronicles, repeat large por- 
tions of the history given in other books, but 
they also furnish much additional information. 

In the middle of our Bible, next after the 
books last mentioned, we find five books, 
mostly poetry (commit their names to memory), 
which are placed without regard to their time 
of composition. In our Lord's classification 
of the Old Testament as "the law, the prophets 
and the psalms," they are included under the 
latter title, because the book of Psalms was 
the best known of the five. It is now quite 
common among scholars to include Job, Prov- 
erbs, and Ecclesiastes under the title, Wis- 
dom Literature, because of the prominence 
given in them to questions about wisdom and 
folly. These five books are grouped together 



1. Another arrangement includes in one group the first six 
books. 'I his group, Genesis to Joshua, is usually called the 
Hexateuch.— W. 






DIVISIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21 

because a likeness in subject matter and liter- 
ary form distinguishes them from the others. 
It should be observed that the arrangement of 
the books in the Bible is the work of unin- 
spired editors and publishers, and not of the 
inspired authors. 

The last division of all is composed of 
seventeen books which are styled prophetical 
(commit their names to memory). These, 
like the preceding division, are grouped to- 
gether, because of their likeness in subject 
matter. Some of them were written after the 
Babylonian exile, and some long before it. 
They follow one another on the pages of the 
Bible without regard to the order of time. 
Nearly every one indicates in the opening 
verses the time of its composition by giving 
the names of the kings under whom its author 
lived and prophesied. 

This classification of the books of the Old 
Testament, if remembered, as it must be by 
all who wish to become proficient in Scripture 
knowledge, will enable the student at any time 
to readily turn to the part he wishes to read, 
whether law, history, poetry, or prophecy. 
Every part has its own peculiar value both for 
instruction and edification; and no part should 
be neglected. 



22 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ORIGINAL TEXT AND ITS PRESERVATION. 

The books of the Old Testament were all 
written, with unimportant exceptions to be 
mentioned hereafter, in the Hebrew tongue, 
which was the native tongue of the Hebrew na- 
tion. As the earliest of them were written more 
than three thousand years ago, and the latest 
more than two thousand years ago, it is proper 
to inquire, what assurance we have that our 
present books are the same as those in the 
original collection, and that they contain the 
same words. To give a full answer to these 
questions would require a whole volume as 
large as this, but we can give the principal 
facts in the case in a few lines. 

During the period from the first writing of 
the books till the invention of printing, all 
copies were made with the pen, and it has 
been found impracticable to cop}' books in 
this way without making some mistakes. 
These occur chiefly in the spelling of words, 
and in the omission or insertion of words not 
essential to the meaning of a sentence ; but a 
few occurred which affect the sense, and which 
sometimes introduce contradictions of a book 



THE ORIGINAL TEXT AND ITS PRESERVATION. 23 

with itself, or with another book. Especially 
is this last the case with names and numbers, 
in which the copyist had no train of thought 
to guide him. This accounts for the discrep- 
ancies in numbers which every thoughtful 
reader has noticed between certain passages in 
Chronicles and the corresponding passages in 
the books of Samuel and Kings. 

After this process had continued until the 
errors of copyists attracted the serious atten- 
tion of Jewish scholars, a company of them 
drew up some very stringent rules to prevent 
such errors in the future. They counted the 
number of words in every book by sections, 
and marked the middle word of every section. 
Then they required every copyist, when he 
had copied to the middle word, to count back 
and see if he had the right number of words. 
If he had, there was good assurance that he 
had omitted none and added none. If he had 
not, the part written was to be thrown away 
and a new copy made. These rules were 
adopted in the second century after Christ, 
and from that time forward no errors worth 
considering crept into the Hebrew Scriptures. 
When printing was invented, which was in 
the year 1448, and the Hebrew Old Testament 
was published in this form, which was in 1477, 



24 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

no more copies were written by hand, and the 
making of mistakes by copying came to an 
end; for when the types for a book are once 
set up correctly, all copies printed from them 
are precisely alike. 

The question whether any of the original 
books have been lost, or others added, is settled 
by the fact that a Greek translation of the Old 
Testament was made, beginning in the year 280 
before Christ, which has come down to our 
day, and it contains the same books. There 
can be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that we 
now have the Old Testament substantially the 
same as when its several books were originally 
written. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OUTLINE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 

(a) Genesis. It is a singular fact that many 
of the titles of the Hebrew books are Greek 
words. This grew out of the circumstance 
that the ancient Hebrews were not accustomed 
to giving titles to their book^, but w r hen they 
were translated into Greek, the translators, 
according to the custom in that language, gave 






OUTLINE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 25 

titles to them. The title Genesis (creation) 
was given to the first book, because it begins 
with an account of creation. 

Starting with a brief account of creation, 
the first general division of this book gives a 
very few incidents in the history of our race 
till the birth of Abraham. This division in- 
cludes the first eleven chapters. The events 
which it records are chiefly connected with 
the increasing wickedness of men by which 
God was constrained to destroy all except 
Noah's family in the waters of a flood. After 
the account of the flood there follows an ex- 
tremely brief account of the re-peopling of the 
earth by the descendants of Noah, and of their 
unwilling dispersion into different communities 
through the confusion of tongues. In the 
course of this brief record, we find two gene- 
alogies — that of Noah, which is traced back 
to Adam, and that of Abraham, which is traced 
back to Noah; and by means of the two we 
trace back to Adam the ancestry of Abraham. 
At the close of chapter eleven the narrative 
changes from a general history of men, to a 
biography of a single man. This biography 
of one man, who lived only one hundred and 
seventy-five years, occupies one and a half times 
as much space as the previous history of all 



26 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

men. We thus discover that the author's 
main theme thus far is his account of Abraham, 
and that the preceding portion was intended 
chiefly as an introduction to this. 

The story of Abraham contains much that 
is interesting and edifying; and it should be 
studied in connection with the many references 
to it in the New Testament, which are all 
pointed out on the margin of any good refer- 
ence Bible; but the chief interest in it to the 
mind of the author of Genesis, seems to be 
centered upon certain promises made to him 
by God. One was, that he would give to him 
and his seed the land of Canaan, in which he 
was then living as a stranger; another was, 
that his posterity should be as numerous as 
the stars of heaven, or the sands on th # e sea- 
shore; and another, that in him and in his 
seed should all the nations of the earth be 
blessed. In connection with the second of 
these, he was commanded to circumcise all the 
males born in his house, or bought with his 
money, and was told that this ordinance should 
be observed by his posterity forever. This 
rite served to distinguish his posterity among 
men, so that it might be seen in subsequent 
generations that God's promise was kept. 
These promises necessarily looked forward, 



OUTLINE OP THE PENTATEUCH. 27 

and the author kept them in mind as he wrote 
the remainder of this and the other books of 
the Pentateuch. 

In connection with the first of these prom- 
ises, God told Abraham that before his seed 
should possess the promised land, they should 
be in bondage in a foreign land four hundred 
years, but should come out a great nation, and 
then take possession of Canaan. The rest of 
the book is taken up with the various fortunes 
of his descendants, many of which are thrill- 
ingly interesting, till his grandson Jacob, with 
a family of sixty-eight living descendants, is 
led by a mysterious chain of providences to 
take up his abode in Egypt, preparatory to 
the fulfillment of the last mentioned prediction. 
The book closes with the death of Joseph, the 
eleventh son of Jacob, through whose instru- 
mentality the family had been brought into 
Egypt, and who in dying spoke of the prom- 
ised return to Canaan, and gave his brethren 
charge to carry his bones with them for final 
burial in that land. 

A glance backward will now show the 
reader that the main design of the author of 
Genesis was to give the history of Abraham's 
family down to the migration into Egypt; that 
the previous account of the whole world was 



28 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 



preparatory to this; and all this was prepara- 
tory to an account yet to be given of the ful- 
fillment of predictions and promises made to 
Abraham. 

We find that the author goes over in this 
short book nearly 2,500 years of the world's 
history; and yet the book, if printed by itself, 
would be only a small pamphlet. 

(b) Exodus. This book is called Exodus 
(going out), because a prominent event in it is 
the departure of Israel out of Egypt. The 
name, like Genesis, is Greek. The book is 
divided into three distinct parts. The first 
traces the steps by which the Hebrews, whose 
coming into Egypt was warmly welcomed by 
the king, were finally brought into bondage; 
and those by which, under the leadership of 
Moses, they were delivered after a residence 
in that land of four hundred and thirty years. 
Nearly the whole world had at that time fallen 
into idolatry; and the method which God 
chose for the deliverance of Israel was also in- 
tended to make himself once more known to 
the Egyptians and the surrounding nations, 
while it also made him much better known to 
his own people. Moses was the first great mis- 
sionary to the heathen. The second part 
shows the wonderful way in which God sus- 



OUTLINE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 29 

tamed the people in the wilderness; how he 
led them to Mt. Sinai; and how he there entered 
into a covenant with them, and gave them a 
set of laws, civil and religious, to govern them 
as a nation. The third part describes a sanc- 
tuary, or place of worship which he caused 
them to erect, and which could be easily moved 
with them through all of their subsequent 
journeys. By these events was fulfilled the 
promise to Abraham, "That nation whom they 
shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall 
they come out with great substance;" for the 
fulfillment of the various promises to Abraham 
runs like a thread through all the subsequent 
history of his people. 

(c) Leviticus. This book is filled with a set 
of laws, regulating the sacrifices and purifica- 
tions which were connected with the worship at 
the sanctuary, together with a few ethical pre- 
cepts intended to cultivate holiness and right- 
eousness among the people. It is because 
these ceremonies were to be administered by 
the priests the sons of Aaron and other Le- 
vites, that the book was named by the Greek 
translators, Leviticus. 

(d) Numbers. This name was given from 
the circumstance that the numbering of Israel 
twice by the command of God is recorded in it, 



30 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

the first numbering near the beginning, and the 
second near the close. The book gives an ac- 
count of the journeyings and other experiences 
of Israel, during the period of about thirty- 
eight years, in which they were wandering 
from Mt. Sinai to the eastern bank of the river 
Jordan, whence they finally crossed over into 
Canaan. Many of their experiences were of 
the most thrilling character, rendering this a 
most interesting book. In the course of these 
events many new laws were given, God hav- 
ing reserved these to be given in connection 
with events which seemed to call for them, and 
to thus make the enactment of them more im- 
pressive than it otherwise could be. It was a 
time of wonderful divine discipline, in the 
course of which the whole generation of grown 
persons who crossed the Red Sea perished, 
with the exception of two, and a new genera- 
tion was brought up under the training of the 
Lord. These could be expected to serve God 
in their new home more faithfully than their 
fathers would have done. Even Moses and 
Aaron were among those who died in the 
wilderness. God had now, according to the 
promise to Abraham, broueht them out of 
their bondage in Egypt and judged that nation, 
(e) Deuteronomy. This name means the sec- 



OUTLINE OF THE PENTATEUCH. 31 

ond law. It was given because the Greek 
translators found in it a repetition of some 
laws previously given, and the enactment of 
some new laws. The main body of the book 
is made up of three discourses delivered by 
Moses in the plain of Moab over against Jeri- 
cho, beginning on the first day of the eleventh 
month of the fortieth year, or just two and a 
half months before the dose of forty years 
since the start out of Egypt (i: 3). The first 
discourse, beginning with i: 6, and closing with 
iv: 40, would be called, in our modern style, a 
historical sermon ; for it consists in a rehearsal 
of all the leading events of the previous forty 
years, with practical lessons drawn from them, 
and exhortations based on them. It is an ad- 
mirable specimen of that kind of preaching, 
and it should be studied as such by the preach- 
ers of the present day. 

This discourse is followed by a brief state- 
ment about the cities of refuge east of the Jor- 
dan, and this by a kind of introduction to the 
second discourse. The second discourse be- 
gins with chapter fifth, and closes with chap- 
ter twenty-sixth. In it Moses rehearses many 
of the laws which had been given in the pre- 
vious years of the wanderings, beginning with 
the ten commandments; adds a few new stat- 



32 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

utes; and warmly exhorts the people to keep 
them all and to teach them diligently to their 
children. In this discourse, much more than 
in any other part of the Pentateuch there is a 
constant appeal to the love of God as the one 
great motive to obedience; and the ground of 
that love is pointed out repeatedly in the un- 
exampled goodness of God toward Israel. 

The third discourse, beginning with the 
twenty-seventh chapter and closing with the 
thirtieth, is prophetical; proclaiming a long 
and fearful list of curses which would befall 
the people if they should depart from the serv- 
ice of Jehovah, and of the blessings if they 
should be faithful to him. 

The last four chapters are occupied with 
the announcement of the approaching death of 
Moses; a formal charge to Joshua as his suc- 
cessor; a statement about his committing the 
law to writing and charging the Levites with 
its preservation; two poems; an account of 
his death; and some comments by a later 
writer on his career. 

These discourses and poems, like the ex- 
hortion which ends a long sermon, bring the 
Pentateuch to a most fitting conclusion; for 
they gather up and concentrate upon the heart 
of the reader all the moral power of the event- 



ISRAEL'S HISTORY. 33 

ful history from Adam down, by way of ex- 
alting the name of Jehovah and filling the 
hearts of his people with gratitude. Especially 
was this so with the Israelites wlio saw in 
the past the unfolding of God's gracious pur- 
poses toward them as declared in his prom- 
ises to their father Abraham. When Moses 
disappeared from among them he left them 
with nothing but the narrow channel of the 
Jordan between them and the land of promise 
to which God had now, af f er dreary centuries, 
brought them in exact fulfillment of his word. 
The teaching of that fulfillment constitutes 
the unity of the Pentateuch. 

The time covered by the Pentateuch, ac- 
cording to the figures given on its pages, is 
2,760 years. This is nearly twice as much 
time as is covered by all the rest of the Bible. 



CHAPTER V. 

ISRAEL'S HISTORY FROM THE DEATH OF 
MOSES TO THAT OF DAVID. 

While the twelve historical books which 
follow the Pentateuch give us, as we have said 
in a former chapter, an almost continuous 



34 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

history down to the close of the Old Testament 
period, the study of this history is facilitated 
by considering it according to the several dis- 
tinct periods into which it naturally divides 
itself. We chose first, as best suiting our 
present purpose, the one named at the head of 
this chapter, and we shall set it forth by giving 
outlines of the several books in which the 
history is found. 

(a) Joshua. This book is so called, not 
because Joshua wrote it, although it is possible 
that he did so, but because it is he who figures 
most conspicuously in the transactions which 
it records. 

The book is divided into three distinct 
parts. The first, beginning where the Penta- 
teuch left off with Israel on the east bank of 
the Jordan, describes their miraculous passage 
of the swollen river, and their conquests, in 
two great campaigns, of the whole land of 
Canaan, with the exception of a few tribes 
who were so weakened as not to hinder the 
settlement of the country by the Hebrews. 
This brought to a final fulfillment the promise 
to Abraham that God would give him this 
land as an inheritance for his posterity. This 
part includes the first twelve chapters. 

The second part, including chapters thir- 



ISRAEL'S HISTORY. 35 

teen to twenty-two, gives the location of the 
several tribes, chiefly by naming the cities 
within their respective lots. These chapters 
might be called the Biblical Geography of Pales- 
tine. The student should here take up a 
good map and learn the location of every tribe, 
and of all the principal cities, mountains, plains, 
and waters. The closing part, twenty-third 
and twenty-fourth chapters, is occupied with 
two farewell addresses delivered by Joshua, one 
to the civil office-holders of all Israel, and the 
other to a mass meeting of the whole people, 
and with a very brief account of the death and 
burial of Joshua, and of Eleazer the priest. It 
also mentions the burial of the bones, or 
mummy, of Joseph, which had been brought 
up out of Egypt. Israel is now settled as a 
nation in the promised land, and the promises 
respecting that land which had been made to 
Abiaham and repeated to Isaac and Jacob, are 
fulfilled 

(b) Judges. This book opens with an ac- 
count of the separate actions of the several 
tribes in driving out the Canaanites who were 
left in their territories after the death of Joshua, 
though it also contains a repetition of one con- 
quest by the tribe of Judah which had been 
achieved before Joshua died. Then, in a kind 



36 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

of preface, the author occupies the rest of the 
first two chapters with a brief statement of the 
alternate apostasies and deliverances which 
make up the history in the rest of the book. 
These two chapters may be styled Part First. 
Then follows Part Second, chapters three to 
sixteen, in which sometimes one tribe and some- 
times many fall into idolatry; are subdued or 
greatly harassed by their enemies until they 
repent and call upon God; are then delivered 
under the leadership of a Judge raised up by 
the Lord for the purpose; are kept in the fear 
of God until the Judge dies, when the same 
round of events is repeated to the twelfth time. 
There was no central government ; but to 
answer the purposes of such when necessity 
required, Judges were providentially raised up 
and the accounts which we have of them here 
gave the name Judges to this book. 

The third part of the book, chapters seven- 
teen to twenty-one, gives two incidents which 
had been passed over by the writer to avoid an 
interruption of the main thread of the history. 
The one shows how an idolatrous worship 
which was set up at Dan, and continued there 
for several centuries, was first inaugurated; and 
the other shows how the whole nation came 
together at an early day to punish a great 



Israel's history. 37 

crime, when the city and the tribe within which 
it had been committed refused to do so. 

The general design of the book of Judges 
seems to be to exhibit the working of both 
civil and religious law during the first three 
or four hundred years of Israel's experi- 
ences under it. In both respects there had been 
a comparative failure, as is also true in the 
history of every nation both ancient and mod- 
ern; but under this divine discipline many 
men and women of eminent virtues were de- 
veloped. 

(c) Ruth. The romantic incidents of this 
beautiful story occurred while the Judges ruled 
in Israel (i: i), and one of its purposes, the 
only one that appears till the closing paragraph 
brings out another, is to present a better phase 
of life under the Judges than we find in the 
book of Judges. This it does in a most charm- 
ing manner. But at the close we ascertain that 
it was also intended to show that a woman of 
Moab was among the maternal ancestors of 
David, and to trace the interesting circum- 
stances by which this was brought about. It 
could scarcely have been written before the 
reign of David; for it was David's reign that 
gave public interest to his genealogy. 

(d) First Samuel. This book begins with 



38 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

the last of the Judges and closes with the death 
of the first king. It contains, therefore, an 
account of the change in the form of govern- 
ment. It shows how the political and re- 
ligious degeneration, which had been going on 
in the latter part of the rule of the Judges, 
sank to its lowest point in the moral corrup- 
tion of the priesthood, when the people came 
to abhor the sacrifices of Jehovah on account 
of the wickedness of the priests who offered 
them. It shows also that political degrada- 
tion reached its lowest point with the degrada- 
tion of religion; and that then the ark of the 
covenant, which was the symbol of God's pres- 
ence with Israel, was captured and taken away 
by their old enemies, the Philistines. This in- 
troduced an irregularity in the worship on the 
part of those who continued to serve God, and 
it led to a demand on the part of the people for 
a king to rule over them. This demand was 
treated as a sin of the people, because it was 
their own sins, and not an inherent defect in 
the form of government which God had given 
them, that brought about the failure. Never- 
theless, God had foreseen this result, and had 
provided beforehand for it, and consequently 
he gave them a king in the person of Saul the 
son of Kish. In the meantime the prophet 



ISRAEL'S HISTORY. 39 

Samuel had brought about a great religious 
reformation among the people, and if Saul had 
proved to be a faithful servant of God, the 
affairs of the whole nation would in every way 
have been greatly improved. But though Saul 
was a skillful warrior, and fought many victor- 
ious battles, he turned away from God in many 
things, and his career ended in death on the 
battlefield. His reign closed, as did the rule 
of the Judges, in a defeat which left the peo- 
ple once more in subjection to the Philistines, 
once more illustrating the rule that righteous- 
ness exalteth a nation, while sin is a disgrace 
to any people. This is the lesson most strik- 
ingly taught by this portion of Israel's history. 
The book also shows how God prepared an- 
other man in the person of David to take the 
place of Saul, and to reign more worthily than 
he did. It also strikingly exhibits the career 
of the greatest prophet who had thus far ap- 
peared in Israel since the days of Moses; for 
Samuel was not only an eminently good man, 
but he was also a successful ruler, and even a 
king-maker, seeing that under God he selected 
and anointed as kings both Saul and David; 
and until his death, which was mourned by the 
whole nation, both these men and all the peo- 
ple looked to him for counsel in every great 



40 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

crisis. From this time forward the special of- 
ficers raised up from time to time to represent 
God are prophets, as under the preceding period 
they had been Judges. 

(e) Second Samuel. In the Hebrew Bible 
our two books of Samuel are but one; and in 
the English the history goes on from the one 
into the other without a break. The division 
was made for convenience in making refer- 
ences and in finding particular passages. 
Neither of them bears the name Samuel be- 
cause Samuel wrote it; but because he figured 
so largely in starting the course of events 
which they record. He died before the events 
in First Samuel had all transpired. The pres- 
ent book opens with David's accession to the 
throne, first over Judah, and after a seven- 
years war, over all Israel. The history had 
now reached the point at which another of the 
ancient promises of God began to be fulfilled; 
for it was promised to Jacob, " A nation and a 
company of nations shall be of thee, and kings 
shall come out of thy loins;' ' and Judah had 
been pointed out as the son of Jacob through 
whom this promise should be fulfilled; for in 
Jacob's dying prophecy about his sons he had 
said, * ' The sceptre shall not depart from Judah 






Israel's history. 41 



till Shiloh 1 come." In fulfillment of this prom- 
ise, David, a descendant of Judah by the gene- 
alogy recorded in the book of Ruth, was now 
a reigning king, and his posterity were to reign 
in succession after him. To show this was a 
leading design of the book. It also shows, by 
the career of David, even more strikingly than 
was seen in the career of Saul, that prosperity 
attends a king while he serves God, and ad- 
versity comes with disobedience; for this book, 
from the point at which it finds David on the 
throne, is divided into two very distinct parts, 
which may be styled, The Prosperous Part of 
David's Reign (chapters v-x), and David's 
Adversity (chapters xii-xxiv). The two parts 
are separated by the great sin which has been 
associated with David's name from the day it was 
exposed until now. The same great lesson is 
taught in the careers of many men prominently 
connected with David. This makes the second 
book of Samuel one of the most profitable for 
reading and reflection of all the books of the 
Old Testament. 

This book also brings out the fact that the 
reign of David was a period of decided literary 



1. The word rendered "Shiloh" is obscure. It may mean 
" Peace." Somewhat better renderings are " Till he come to Shiloh" 
(Josh, xviii: 1) or "Till he to whom it belongs shall come."— W. 



42 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

activity in Israel, for it publishes several of 
David's poems, and it connects the history with 
the contents of the book of Psalms, many of the 
poems in which were composed by him. We 
learn also from the book of Chronicles, that the 
prophets Samuel, Nathan and Gad, were au- 
thors of works which jointly included all the 
actsof David, "first and last" (I Chron. xxix: 
2 9"3°)- It is highly probable that at this 
period the books of Ruth and Judges, and 
much of the book of Samuel were written. 
The book of Jasher too, which is mentioned 
only twice, once to state that it contained an 
account of Joshua's command to the sun and 
moon to stand still, and once to say that David's 
lamentation over the death of Saul was written 
in it, was very probably written at this time, 
seeing that it is not mentioned in connection 
with any later event. It was evidently a book 
of great value and authority, though it was al- 
lowed afterward to perish. 

During David's rei^n the reader should not 
fail to observe that God's chosen messengers to 
declare his will from time to time, in matters 
both of government and of morals, continued to 
exercise authority even over the king. This 
was especially true of Nathan and Gad, of whom 
we know little besides this. 



THE REIGN OP SOLOMON. 48 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE REIGN OF SOLOMON AND THE DIVISIONS 
OF THE KINGDOM. 

The subject of this chapter is set forth in 
the first twelve chapters of First Kings, and 
the first ten chapters of Second Chronicles. 
The account begins by showing that Solomon 
came near losing the throne and his life through 
a conspiracy of his older brother Adonijah, 
who, being the oldest living son of David, 
claimed the right to the throne, and was sup- 
ported in this claim by such men as Joab and 
the high priest Abiathar. This conspiracy 
was undertaken before David's death, and he 
was supposed to be so decrepit that he could 
not interfere. But he was aroused to activity 
by the combined efforts of the prophet Nathan 
and the mother of Solomon, and the conspiracy 
was nipped in the bud by the immediate anoint- 
ing of Solomon. 

The young king's choice of wisdom, when 
God gave him his choice as to what should be 
given him, is the key-note of the earlier part 
of his reign, and it brings into startling con- 
trast the apostasy which characterized the last 
few years of his life. The chief event of his 



44 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

reign is the erection of the temple which re- 
placed the old Tent of Meeting erected by 
Moses. This brought to an end, at least among 
the faithful, the irregular worship that had 
prevailed ever since the capture of the ark by 
the Philistines, and it enabled the priests to 
subsequently conduct the services according 
to all the provisions of the law. 

After building the temple, and also a mag- 
nificent palace for himself, Solomon proceeded 
to inaugurate a complete system of fortification 
at strategic points in his kingdom, so that one 
or more of these would confront an enemy 
from whatever point he might attempt to 
march an invading army toward Jerusalem. 
It was probably this wise precaution, together 
with an alliance by marriage with the reigning 
king of Egypt, that preserved his kingdom in 
peace throughout his long reign of forty 
years. 

The literary activity which had sprung 
into being in the reign of David, reached its 
culmination in that of Solomon. He himself 
took the lead in it, by writing many poems 
and proverbs, and by discoursing on nearly 
all the subjects which are now grouped under 
the general title of Natural History. Bio- 
graphical writing was also cultivated, and the 



THE REIGN OF SOLOMON. 45 

prophets Nathan, Ahijah and Iddo are men- 
tioned as writers of this class. 

Solomon was the first king of Israel to en - 
gage in commerce, and especially in the mining 
of the precious metals, which he found in rich 
abundance in a region called Ophir, whose 
mines were soon exhausted so that the place 
itself has ceased to be known. These enter- 
prises brought him in contact with the outside 
world, and he became by far the most famous 
king who at any time reigned in Israel. His 
wealth bred a fondness for magnificence, and 
this led him to multiply wives, horses and 
chariots, and these again to complicity with 
the worship of idols. 

The prosperity "of the kingdom under Solo- 
mon, as it was very largely secured by oppres- 
sive levies upon the working classes of his sub- 
jects, wrought out its own destruction, as the 
historian proceeds to relate after Solomon's 
death. The people petitioned his son and suc- 
cessor to lessen the burdens imposed by the 
father; he answered them contemptuously, and 
ten of the tribes, under the leadership of Jero- 
boam, a bold man of the tribe of Ephraim, 
revolted and set up a rival kingdom. Once 
more was Israel taught that national prosperity 



46 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

was to be secured only by strict adherence to 
the will of God. 1 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE TWO KINGDOMS. 

I Kings i-xii; II Chronicles i-xii. 

From the division of the kingdom till the 
downfall of that of the ten tribes, called the 
kingdom of Israel, or the northern kingdom, 
while the other was the kingdom of Judah, or 
the southern kingdom, the author of the book 
of Kings treats their history alternately, while 
the Chronicler confines himself to the latter, 
except when the two come in contact. 

We should study this part of the history 
under the subdivisions into which it is natur- 
ally divided, and we must take into view the 
writings of the prophets as they come into 
contact with the history; for the latter consti- 
tute a very important part of the history of 
the times, and without them the narrative in 



1. The conduct of Ahijah the Prophet (T Kings xi: 29-35) in 
encouraging Jeroboam to revolt, indicates the feeling on the part of 
the prophets that the interests of true religion required a simpler 
form of national life than the splendors of Solomon's reign en- 
couraged. — W. 



THE TWO KINGDOMS. 47 

Kings and Chronicles could be but imperfectly 
understood. 

This portion of the history divides itself 
into three distinct parts which we shall con- 
sider separately. They are first, a period of 
hostility between the two kingdoms; second, 
a period of friendly alliance; and third, a sec- 
ond period of hostility. 

i. The First Period of Hostility. This 
period began with the division of the kingdom, 
and closed with an alliance between kings 
Ahab and Jehosbaphat, and it lasted about 78 
years At the beginning of this period Jero- 
boam established the worship of Jehovah under 
the image of golden calves at Bethel and Dan; 
ordained an annua! festival at the former place, 
and made it unlawful for his subjects to go to 
Jerusalem to worship as the law of Moses re- 
quired The author of the book of Kings is 
careful to trace the continuance of this unlaw- 
ful worship in the reigns of subsequent kings 
of Israel, and the evil consequences of it are 
plainly seen in the course of events. Within 
about fifty years four different dynasties came 
to the throne, each exterminating the male 
offspring of its predecessor, and each being 
pronounced more wicked than those that had 
gone before. Finally the religious degradation 



48 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

reached such a point that to the calf- worship 
inaugurated by Jeroboam was added the almost 
universal worship of Baal. In this crisis the 
greatest of all the prophets who have left no 
writings behind them, Elijah the Tishbite, 
appeared like a sudden thunderstorm on the 
scene, and gave a staggering blow to this per- 
nicious system. 

In the meantime, the kingdom of Judah had 
progressed more satisfactorily. Adhering to 
the true God, and maintaining his worship ac- 
cording to the law, only four kings had come 
to the throne when the seventh began to reign 
in Israel. During a temporary apostasy of the 
people under Rehoboam, the country was over- 
run by an Egyptian army, and a heavy tribute 
was paid to get rid of it ; but a return to the Lord 
brought a return of prosperity, and Jehosh- 
aphat was reigning righteously over Judah 
while Ahab was in the midst of the wickedest 
reign that had been known in Israel. 

2 . The Period of Reconcilia Hon . The two 
kingdoms so long hostile now became recon- 
ciled by the marriage of Ahab's daughter 
Athaliah,to Jehoram the son and heir of Jehosh- 
aphat. The alliance emboldened Ahab to a 
military enterprise which he had not dared to 
undertake alone, and which resulted in the 



THE TWO KINGDOMS. 49 

defeat of his army and the loss of his life. The 
whole story of his reign is full of instruction 
and warning. Jehoshaphat was rebuked by a 
messenger from God for helping those who 
were the enemies of God; but the friendly rela- 
tions between his kingdom and that of Israel 
continued until the former reaped much bitter 
fruit therefrom. Athaliah proved a scourge to 
Judah, and in the third generation of Jehosh- 
aphat's descendants she attempted the exter- 
mination of the royal family. She came so 
near succeeding that only one infant was left 
to perpetuate the family of David, and to make 
possible the divine promise that he should never 
lack a son to sit upon his throne. This infant 
was saved at the sacrifice of Athaliah's own 
execrable life, and then came to an end the 
alliance between Israel and Judah which had 
proved a continuous disaster to the latter. 

While such was the course of history in 
Judah, Israel had fared no better. Ahab's son 
and successor, Ahaziah, reigned only two 
years. He made a feeble effort to revive Baal 
worship, and he also committed the fatal sin of 
his life by sending messengers to Baal-zebub, 
the god of Ekron, to inquire of him the result 
of an injury which he had received from a fall. 
Dying without a son, he was succeeded by his 






50 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

brother Jehoram, in whose reign the career of 
Elijah came to a glorious end, and the brilliant 
career of Elisha kept alive to some extent the 
fear of God among the people. More than once 
he saved the kingdom from subjugation by 
Benhadad the powerful king of Syria. Jeho- 
ram's career ended in the extermination of the 
whole offspring of Abab by the hand of Jehu. 

That the two great prophets, Elijah and 
Elisha, were sent 4 to the more wicked of the 
two kingdoms, though a matter of surprise at 
first thought, was the very thing to be ex- 
pected; for their mission was to rebuke sin, 
and where sin most abounded was their proper 
field of activity. By checking Baal-worship in 
the larger kingdom, where it originated, they 
brought it to a speedier end in the smaller 
kingdom to which it had spread. 

3. The Second Period of Hostility. After 
the extermination of the house of Ahab in Is- 
rael, and the death of Athaliah in Judah, there 
was no more co-operation between the two 
kingdoms; but instead there were frequent 
wars as of old. The house of Jehu held the 
throne in the north longer than any other, and 
under Jeroboam II the kingdom reached its 
greatest power and prosperity since the days of 
Solomon. This king, by the prophetic guid- 



THE TWO KINGDOMS. 51 

ance of the prophet Jonah, subdued the king- 
dom of Syria which had long oppressed his na- 
tion, and extended his dominions to the Eu- 
phrates, which was the northern boundary of 
the kingdom of David. The incidents recorded 
in the book of Jonah belong to this reign. 

It was in this reign, which was a long 
one, that the prophets Hosea and Amos uttered 
the prophecies which we find in their books. 
It is necessary to study these, in order to fully 
understand the condition of the people at the 
time; for while the account in the historical 
book of Kings touches upon political and 
military affairs, and this very slightly, the two 
prophets speak to the people of their sins ; and 
in doing so they bring to light a state of irre- 
ligion and immorality in the midst of secular 
prosperity, which fills the reader with horror, 
and which is yet but the legitimate result of 
the experiences through which the ten tribes 
had passed since the division of the kingdom. 
It is also worthy of special notice that they 
predicted the downfall and ruin of the kingdom 
at the very time when, according to all human 
foresight, there was less prospect of such a dis- 
aster than at any previous period in its history. 

After the fall of the house of Jehu, which 
occurred in six months after the death of Jero- 



52 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

boam II, the kingdom hastened rapidly to the 
doom predicted for it by Hosea and Amos. A 
succession of five kings came to the throne in 
thirty-two years, all of whom but one were 
assassinated by their successors. In their rival- 
ries they hired three successive kings of Assyria 
to interfere in their affairs, thus fairly inviting 
the rulers of that great Empire to come at last, 
as they did, and take the whole kingdom into 
captivity. Finally in the ninth year of the last 
of these assassins, Hoshea, the end came as de- 
scribed in the seventeenth chapter of II Kings. 
While Israel was thus going the downward 
road to destruction, Judah, having recovered 
somewhat from the damaging effects of the al- 
liance with the house* of Ahab, passed through 
a happier career, though not without some 
severe rebukes from the two prophets who were 
specially sent to Israel. Of the six kings who 
reigned during the time of the ten in Israel, 
two were faithful to God and his law, while 
three were unfaithful in many things, but far 
less so than the kings of Israel. 

The last of these good kings, Hezekiah, 
was in the sixth year of his reign when Israel 
was carried captive. 

The whole period of the separate existence 
of the two kingdoms, counted by adding to- 



THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH CONTINUED. 53 

gether the reigns of the kings and making 
a proper reduction for the peculiar Hebrew 
method of counting, is 354 years, and the mod- 
ern date of captivity of Israel is B. C. 721. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH CONTINUED. 

II Kings xviii: 25; II Chron. xxix: 34. 

The history of the kingdom of Judah, from 
the fall of Israel to its own fall, is found in II 
Kings, from the eighteenth chapter to the 
close, and in II Chronicles, from chapter twenty- 
nine to the close. Some of it is also found in 
the books of the prophets who wrote during 
that period, especially in those of Isaiah and 
Jeremiah. The time included was about 130 
years, covering the reigns of eight kings. Of 
these two reigned only three months each, and 
one only two years. The first, Hezekiah, was 
a good king, the best who had reigned since 
the division of the kingdom. He was preceded, 
however, by two kings, Jotham and Ahaz, who 
were very wicked, and under their evil influ- 
ence the people had become very corrupt. It 



54 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

was therefore with great difficulty that Heze- 
kiah induced them once more to live according 
to the law of Moses. As a divine acknowledg- 
ment of his fidelity, his reign was signalized by 
one of the most remarkable deliverances which 
Israel at any time experienced. It was the 
miraculous destruction by night of a vast army 
under Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, who 
had invaded the land while prosecuting a war 
against Egypt, arid demanded the surrender of 
Jerusalem. 

In Hezekiah's reign the public career of the 
prophet Isaiah came to an end. He was called 
to be a prophet in the year that King Uzziah 
died, and his earlier prophetic discourses were 
devoted to denouncing the wickedness of the 
people under the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz. 
These should be read in connection with what is 
said in Kings and Chronicles of these two kings. 
While the latter books give the political history, 
Isaiah lifts the curtain from the state of society 
among the people, and shows how hideous it was. 
He was the constant supporter and adviser of 
Hezekiahinall his goodundertakings,and many 
chapters of his book, up to the thirty-ninth, are 
to be studied in connection with Hezekiah's 
reign. The last twenty- seven chapters look for- 
ward to the captivity of Judah, and the deliver- 



THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH CONTINUED. 55 

ance from it, while many passages in every part 
of the book look forward to the time of the 
Messiah. 

Hezekiah's good reign was followed by that 
of Manasseh, the wickedest of all the kings that 
ever reigned in Jerusalem. His reign was a 
long one, continuing for fifty-five years. The 
true religion was utterly abolished, and all the 
forms of idolatry known among the surround- 
ing nations were substituted. The temple of 
God was made the centre of these abomina- 
tions. A whole generation of Jews grew up to 
mature years, and some to old age, without a 
chance to know the true God or to gain any 
knowledge of the Scriptures. Amon, the son 
and successor of Manasseh, continued in the 
ways of his father, adding two more years to 
this period of apostasy. When Josiah, the next 
king, came to the throne, he was only eight 
years old, and twelve more years were added 
to the period of darkness before he reached an 
age to vigorously attempt a reformation. By 
the providence of God, and perhaps through 
the agency of the prophet Zephaniah 1 he was 
at this time brought under such influences that 
he undertook to restore the true worship, and 
to abolish idolatry. In his eighteenth year, 

1. See pages 60, 61. 



56 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

m 

when the reign of darkness and ignorance had 
endured for seventy-five years, a copy of the 
law of God was found in the temple and from 
reading it both the king and the people were 
enabled to realize the terrifying sinfulness of 
themselves and their fathers. A heroic effort 
was made by the king to bring the people to 
repentance, and to restore them to the favor of 
God; and he appeared to be successful; but the 
prophet Jeremiah, who had begun to prophesy 
in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and who lent 
all of his influence as a prophet to the support 
of the king, publicly denounced the reforma- 
tion of the people as being feigned and not from 
the heart. The first twenty chapters of his 
book should be studied in connection with the 
history of Josiah' s reign, for they depict in most 
vivid colors the state of society and religion 
which had been and was still prevalent He 
also predicted again and again the downfall of 
the kingdom in consequence of these sins. 
Josiah and Jeremiah were both young men 
when they began their joint labors for the sal- 
vation of their people, and no two young men 
ever fought a braver battle together with almost 
a whole nation combined against them. 

Josiah was the last king of Judah who tried 
to avert the doom that was coming upon the 



THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH CONTINUED. 57 

nation according to the words of many proph- 
ets. His own fate was a tragic one, for he was 
slain in a battle against the king of Egypt, who 
was marching an army through his territory to 
make war upon Assyria with whom Josiah was 
in a friendly alliance. Only twent3^-two years 
lay between his death and the beginning of the 
predicted captivity, and these were occupied by 
the reigns of three of his sons and one grand- 
son, all four of whom rejected the counsel of 
God given through Jeremiah, and persisted in 
the wickedness which now characterized nearly 
all the people. During the whole of this time 
Jeremiah was the most conspicuous man in 
the nation, not as the counsellor and sup- 
porter of the kings, as in the days of Josiah, but 
as the mouthpiece of God, crying out constantly 
against the wickedness of king and subjects. 
All of his book, from the twenty-first chapter 
to the close, should be carefully studied in con- 
nection with the reigns of these four kings. 
Unfortunately, these chapters are not arranged 
inchronological order in the book, but in the 
preface to almost every prophetic discourse he 
tells us under what king, and in what year of 
his reign it was delivered. No character de- 
picted in all the Bible is more heroic than that 
of Jeremiah, and the account of none is more 



58 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

thrillingly interesting. He has been called the 
weeping prophet, because of the deep distress 
which he felt for the woes which were coming 
upon his people, his predictions of which they 
would not believe. He also suffered much vio- 
lence at their hands. The little book called 
Lamentations is an expression in poetry of his 
sorrow over Jerusalem when it finally fell into 
the hands of the heathen. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OTHKR PRE-EXIUAN PROPHETIC BOOKS. 

In the preceding historical survey we have 
passed by several books which can better be 
considered in separate sections: 

i . Prophetical Books. There are seven of 
these, and we shall name them in the order of 
time as nearly as that can be determined. 

(a) Micah. The ministry of this prophet 
ran through the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and 
Hezekiah; and he was therefore a contempor- 
ary of Isaiah, who prophesied under the same 
kings. He called his book " The word of Je- 
hovah that came to Micah the Morasthite, 
which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusa- 






OTHER PRE-EXILIAN PROPHETIC BOOKS. 59 

lem. ,, He predicts the downfall of both these 
cities, and rebukes the people sharply for 
the sins which are bringing destruction upon 
them. He also predicts the restoration of the 
people, and it is he who uttered the plain pre- 
diction respecting the birthplace of our Lord, 
which was quoted to Herod by the scribes when 
the wise men appeared in Jerusalem. As he 
prophesied for so long a time, it is almost cer- 
tain that his small book contains but a very 
small part of his prophetic utterances. 

(b) Nahnm. This writer does not tell us 
when he prophesied; but his book is called 
" The burden of Nineveh,' V and it is a predic- 
tion of the downfall and desolation of that 
ancient city. It was uttered after the Assyr- 
ians, whose capital Nineveh was, had invaded 
Judah for the last time (i: 9-15); and this was 
done by Sennacherib ia the reign of Hezekiah. 
Between this time and the fall of Nineveh, 
which occurred twenty years later (B. C. 625), 
Nahum prophesied; and this is as near as we 
can come to fixing his date. His little book 
opens with a magnificent tribute to the majesty 
and power of Jehovah, and his description of 
the battle scenes at the final siege of Nineveh 
is so vivid as to seem that of an eyewitness. 

(c) Habakkuk. This prophet, like Nahum, 



60 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

fails to tell us when he prophesied ; but his 
opening sentences show that it was in a time 
of general lawlessness, and when the Chaldean 
invasion, which he predicts, would take place 
in the days of those to whom he spoke. This 
agrees with the wicked period near the close 
of Manasseh's reign or the early part of that 
of Josiah, for this was a period of lawlessness, 
and it was separated from the Chaldean inva- 
sion not less than twenty-five years nor more 
than forty. At this time the Chaldeans were 
still under the dominion of the Assyrians, and 
there was no human prospect of their coming 
into supreme power. The prayer of Habak- 
kuk, which occupies the latter half of his book, 
is one of the grandest and most devout effu- 
sions in the whole Bible. 

(d) Zephaniah. This prophet traces his gen- 
ealogy back four generations to Hezekiah ; and 
as the only noted man of that name was king 
Hezekiah, it is supposed that he belonged to 
the royal family. He prophesied in the reign 
of Josiah (i: i) ; but in what part of his reign 
is not stated. If it was in the first thirteen 
years, he preceded Jeremiah ( Jer. i: 2), and that 
it was is almost certain when we consider the 
contents of his book ; for he represents the 
people of Jerusalem and Judah at the time as 



OTHER PRE-EXILIAN PROPHETIC BOOKS. 61 

engaged in various forms of idolatry (i: 4-6), 
all of which were abolished by Josiah in the 
twelfth year of his reign. The first two chap- 
ters and part of the third are devoted to denun- 
ciations of Jerusalem for its iniquities, and pre- 
dictions of destructive judgments to bebrought 
upon her therefor. Adjacent nations are also 
included, especially those who had been ene- 
mies to the Jews. The last half of the third 
chapter is devoted to a prediction of the final 
deliverance of Israel from the impending calam- 
ities, and of the prosperity which was to fol- 
low. As this rousing prophetic appeal was 
sounded in the ears of the people in the early 
part of Josiah's reign, and came from the lips 
of a kinsman of the king, there can be little 
doubt that it greatly influenced the latter to 
undertake the reformation for which his reign 
is distinguished. The book should be read 
just after reading the reigns of Manasseh and 
Amon, and before reading that of Josiah. It 
gives an inside view of the state of society 
when Josiah, at twelve pears of age, came to 
the throne, and it helps to account for the sur- 
prising fact that though his father and his 
grandfather had been given to idolatry, and to 
all manner of wickedness, he took the opposite 
course in overthrowing the idolatry which they 



62 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

had established, and in bringing the people 
back to the worship of Jehovah. 

(e) Obadiah. This very short book is en- 
titled, " The Vision of Obadiah." Of the per- 
sonal history of this prophet we have no in- 
formation. The first part of the book (i: 1-16) 
is a denunciation of Edom for the animosity 
which it had shown towards the Jews when 
Jerusalem was overthrown by the Chaldeans 
under Nebuchadnezzar, and a prediction of 
punishment for this unnatural enmity toward 
a kindred people. It was written then, after 
that event, and before the predicted punish- 
ment. A similar denunciation of Edom by Jere- 
miah (xix: 7-22) contains some of the same 
sentences employed by Obadiah, showing that 
one of these prophets copied from the other. 
As they wrote nearly at the same time, it can 
scarcely be determined which did the copying. 

The rest of the book is devoted to predict- 
ing a more complete overthrow of Edom by 
the Jews (17-21); and this was fulfilled after 
the return of the latter from the Babylonian ex- 
ile. Ezekiel, who was also a comtemporary of 
Obadiah, has a similar prediction (xxv: 12-14). 

There is nothing said of this hostility of 
Edom in any of the historical books; but it 
crops out not only in the writings of these three 






OTHER PRE-EXILIAN PROPHETIC BOOKS. 63 

prophets, but also in the 137th Psalm, written 
in the captivity, or soon after its close, in which 
the author says: 

" Remember, O Lord, against the children of 
Edom 
The day of Jerusalem ; 
Who said, Rase it, rase it, 
Even to the foundation thereof." 

(f) Ezekiel. This prophet, like Jeremiah, 
was a priest (i: 3). He was called to be a 
prophet in the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's 
captivity, which corresponds with the fifth year 
of the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Jeru- 
salem. He was at the time among the cap- 
tives in the land of the Chaldeans (i: 3), and 
he was doubtless one of those who were car- 
ried away with Jehoiachin by Nebuchnez- 
zar. When he began to prophesy, Jeremiah 
had already been engaged in the work about 
thirty years; and as Ezekiel was now thirty 
years old (i: 1), he had been brought up from 
infancy under the teaching of Jeremiah. He 
continued to prophesy until the 27th year of 
Jehoiachin's captivity (xxix: 17), and perhaps 
longer. His first six or seven years lapped 
over the last six or seven of Jeremiah, and dur- 
ing that period they were fellow workers, the 
one in Jerusalem and the other in the vicinity 



64 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

of Babylon, both foretelling the speedy down- 
fall of the kingdom of Judah, and exhorting the 
people to repentance. The first half of Ezekiel's 
book, or twenty-four of its forty-eight chap- 
ters, is devoted to these topics. He employs 
a great many very strange symbols, both in 
word and action, some of which are very diffi- 
cult of interpretation ; but he also teaches with 
great plainness of speech many lessons of ex- 
treme importance, not for his own age only, 
but for all the generations of men. The reader 
will readily distinguish the chapters containing 
these lessons, and he should study them until 
they become very familiar. 

The latter half of the book contains predic- 
tions respecting the restoration of Israel and 
Judah, and their subsequent career in their 
own country. In this part there are descrip- 
tions and symbols still more mysterious than 
those in the first part, some of which have never 
been satisfactorily interpreted. Like the other 
prophets, he gives very little information about 
his personal history, and nothing is now known 
respecting the time or place of his death. Had 
he lived to be one hundred years old, be would 
have seen the end of the captivity; but as that 
is improbable, he most probably died in 
Babylon. 



OTHER PRE-EXILIAN PROPHETIC BOOKS. 65 

(g) Joel. Nothing is known of the personal 
history of Joel except that he was the son of 
Pethuel (i: i). He does not say, like the ma- 
jority of the prophets, in what reign or reigns 
he prophesied, and the indications of date in 
his book are so indefinite that commentators 
have differed very greatly as to the time in 
which he wrote,- some placing him among the 
earliest, and some among the latest of the 
prophets. Fortunately, the value of the book 
to us does not depend upon its exact date. 

The first part of the book (i: i-ii, 17) con- 
tains a prediction of a visitation of locusts such 
as had not been known to previous generations 
in the land of Israel (i: 2, 3). The description 
is wonderfully vivid, made so in part by speak- 
ing frequently as if the scene were passing be- 
fore the eye of the prophet. The language 
employed in parts of the description is such 
that some interpreters have understood the 
whole as a symbolic representation of deso- 
lating armies of men. 

Next after this visitation the prophet fore- 
tells a prosperous condition of the country 
(ii: 18-27), and then he predicts the out-pour- 
ing of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Peter on 
the Day of Pentecost quoted the prediction as 
being then in part fulfilled (ii: 28-32; Comp. 



66 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

Acts ii: 16-21). This is the most notable 
feature of Joel's prophesying. It was given 
to him among the prophets to make the most 
distinct prediction of the great event which 
inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth. 

The rest of the prophecy is taken up with 
a prediction of God's judgments on the nations 
surrounding Judah for the cruelties which they 
had visited on his people. It makes no men- 
tion of the kingdom of Israel; and this circum- 
stance, together with the fact that all its local 
allusions have reference to Judah, shows that 
the prophet lived in the southern kingdom. 
There is no particular part of the history with 
which the book has any special connection, or 
on which it throws light. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE POETICAL BOOKS. 1 

We have passed by this class of books, not 
because they are of later date than those men- 

1. It is somewhat difficult to classify accurately the books of 
this section. " Poetical " does not fully describe them, since Ecclesi- 
astes is not poetry, and then other parts of the Old Testament mate- 
rial are poetic, especially Isaiah xl-lxvi. Perhaps a division of these 
books may be made into " Wisdom Books," including Job, Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, and "Devotional," in which lat- 
ter class the Psalms would be placed. — W. 



THE POETICAL BOOKS. 67 

tioned in the last two sections, but because they 
could not be considered earlier without a break 
in the thread of the history. 

i. Job. This is a poetical book with an in- 
troduction, or prologue, and a sequel or epi- 
logue, in prose. The former gives the charac- 
ter and circumstances of the man , together with 
a vain attempt of Satan to prove that his motive 
in serving God was a selfish one. After the 
failure of Satan's attempt, which left Job in a 
state of destitution and extreme suffering, three 
of his friends come to console him, and after a 
time of mournful silence, they enter into a de- 
bate with him as to the cause of his affliction. 
They unitedly assume that his sufferings were 
due to some secret sin of which he had been 
guilty, and they base their conclusion on the 
general proposition that God never afflicts the 
righteous. Job denies their proposition, and 
defends himself the best he can, until they have 
had three rounds of speeches, the friends speak- 
ing in regular rotation and Job answering each 
one separately. Then a younger man, named 
Elihu, whose presence had not been mentioned, 
makes a speech, and finally God himself speaks 
from a whirlwind. In the sequel God decides 
that Job was in the right on the question de- 
bated; commands the three friends to bring an 



68 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

offering to the altar that Job might intercede 
for them, and restores Job to double the earthly 
prosperity which he enjoyed before the trial be- 
gan. The speeches are not limited in subject 
matter to the question in debate; but all of them 
take a wide range of thought, and they contain 
some of the most sublime and edifying poetry 
to be found in any literature. 

The question has been raised very often 
whether Job was a real or an imaginary person; 
but it seems to be settled by the prophet Ezekiel 
and the apostle James, each of whom makes 
statements which imply the reality of his exis- 
tence, his high character, his sufferings and his 
deliverance (Ezek, xiv: 12-20; James v: 10 11). 
But while Job, and also his four friends, were 
real persons, their speeches were not delivered 
in the poetical form in which we have them, for 
this would be impossible without miraculous 
aid; and that they did not enjoy this appears 
from the fact that all of them said things for 
which they were censured. Doubtless the au- 
thor of the book, who is unknown to us, with 
the argument for a starting point, worked the 
speeches into the form in which we have 
them. 

The time at which Job lived cannot be defi- 
nitely determined, but it was before the time 






THE POETICAL BOOKS. 69 

of Ezekiel who refers to him as an example of 
eminent righteousness. 

'2. The Psalms. A glance through this 
book in the Revised Version will show that it 
consists of five books in one, each ending with 
a doxology and an Amen. These five collec- 
tions were made at different times, and by dif- 
ferent compilers; for the Psalms were not all 
written atone time or in the lifetime of one man. 
One of them (xc) is ascribed to Moses, and some 
of them (e. g. cxxxvii.) were as late as the 
Babylonian exile. 1 Their dates and authorship 
are ascertained, so far as these can now be 
known, partly by the inscriptions printed above 
some of them, and partly by a comparison of 
their personal and historical allusions w 7 ith the 
history of the people of Israel. The super- 
scriptions are not a part of the text, but they 
are of very ancient date; and while they are 
not infallible, they are in the main, at least, 
reliable. By these, seventy-three Psalms are 
ascribed to David, 2 and this has led to styling 
the collection as a whole the Psalms of David, 



1. Some students of the Psalms find in certain of them evidence 
of a date later than the return from Babylon, and in three or four 
(xliv, lxxvii, lxxix, lxxxiii) indications of origin in the Maccabe- 
an period. — W. 

2. It is usually agreed among scholars that whatever may have 
been the number of Psalms written by David, the following are cer- 



70 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

the title being taken from the principal author. 
This title, however, is not a part of the sacred 
text. The title in the original text was the 
Hebrew word for Praises; and the Greek trans- 
lators originated the title now in use. 

In order to read the Psalms with the great- 
est profit, every one which contains personal 
or historical allusions should be read in con- 
nection with the events alluded to. A good 
reference Bible will usually point these out to 
the reader; but.it is better still to' have such 
a knowledge of the historical books, that the 
events alluded to will be readily recalled by 
the allusions. 

The sentiments expressed in the Psalms 
came from the hearts of the authors, and they 
show the best effects of the law of Moses, and 
the experience of Israel on the souls of devout 
men under that dispensation. They were writ- 
ten under so great a variety of circumstances 
that they express the sentiment of godly men 
in almost any condition in which men find 
themselves to-day; and therefore they are 



tainly his in the order of the chief periods of his life: Psalms re- 
ferring to his early life, either written then, or recollections of the 
period written later, xix, viii, xxix, xxiii; his persecution by Saul, 
xi, vii; the ark brought to Zion, xxiv, ci, xv; David's wars, 
xviii, xxi, ex, lx; David's sin and repentance, li, xxxii; Absa- 
lom's rebellion, iii, iv, xxiii, lxiii, xli. — W. 



TEE POETICAL BOOKS. 71 

adapted to our edifi cation in all the varied 
scenes of life. One who is familiar with them 
can readily turn to such as will comfort him 
in any sorrow, cheer him in any despondency, 
and furnish expression to his deepest gratitude 
and most fervid thanksgiving. They are 
marked, however, by one defect as compared 
with the sentiments inculcated by Christ, and 
that is their occasional expression of hatred 
toward enemies. Under that dispensation war 
was tolerated, and this rendered it impossible 
to suppress hostile feelings towards the enemy; 
consequently the best of men felt at liberty to 
indulge and express these sentiments. In 
reading the Psalms we should carefully abstain 
from entering into such sentiments w 7 ith the 
authors, and should pass them by as imperfec- 
tions of a preparatory dispensation of the divine 
government. 

3. Proverbs. A proverb strictly speaking, 
is a sentence which expresses briefly and 
strongly some practical truth. In this sense 
this book is not wholly made up of proverbs; 
for the first nine chapters contain a series of 
short poems of a different character, yet they 
are all full of practical lessons such as proverbs 
teach; and consequently, they are not out of 



72 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

place in a book bearing the general title of 
Proverbs. 

The second division of the book, beginning 
with chapter ten, has the heading " The Pro- 
verbs of Solomon,'^ and here the proverbs 
properly speaking, begin. They extend to 
xxii: 16, and constitute the largest division of 
the book, giving the name to the whole. These 
chapters contain 375 separate proverbs, only a 
small number in comparison with the 3,000 
which Solomon is said to have composed (I 
Kings iv: 32). These proverbs are full of prac- 
tical wisdom. 

From chapter xxii: 17 to the close of chap- 
ter xxiv, the matter and form are much the 
same as in the first part of the book. Then 
follow five chapters with the title, l 'These also 
are Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of 
Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Thus 
the book was in part a growth. 

The last section of the book, chapter xxxi, 
is entitled, " ' The Words of King Lemuel; the 
oracle which his mother taught him." Who 
Lemuel was is not known. His words and the 
whole book, close with a description of "A 



THE POETICAL BOOKS. 78 

Virtuous Woman," which presents an ideal of 
womanhood. 1 

(4) Ecclesiastes. The printed title of this 
book is * ' Ecclesiastes or the Preacher;" but 
the title which it gives to itself is, " The Words 
of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jer- 
usalem" (i: 1). The Hebrew word rendered 
preacher, is Koheleth. This was rendered by 
the authors of the Septaugint, Ecclesiastes] and 
this, anglacized, gives us the word commonly 
used as the title of the book. Many scholars 
now use the Hebrew word when speaking of 
the book, and call it Koheleth. The preacher 
meant is undoubtedly Solomon ; for he is the 
only son or decendant of David who reigned in 
Jerusalem, and whose experiences correspond 
to those mentioned in the text. There are 
some who doubt whether Solomon wrote the 
book, and some who are very positive that he 



1. It will be seen that the book is made up of several sections, 
of which the oldest seem to be x: l-xxii:16 and chapters xxv-xxix. 
These are called collections of Solomon's Proverbs. In addition there 
arethe "Sayings of the Wise," xxii: 17-24, " The Words of Agur," 
chapter xxx, "The Words of King Lemuel," xxxi: 1-9, the acros- 
tic poem in praise of the Ideal Woman, xxxi: 10-31, and chapters 
i-ix, which were perhaps written by the compiler of the whole col- 
lection, who named the entire work the Proverbs of Solomon, thus 
using the wise King as the common denominator of all the material 
of which he was known to have set the pattern for later days. The 
relation of Solomon to the Proverb literature is the same as that of 
David to the Psalter. Each set in motion a type of literary activity 
to which others added through centuries. — W. 



74 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

did not; yet even these admit that whoever the 
writer was, he attempted to set forth the senti- 
ment of Solomon, and wrote in his person. 

We might look upon the whole book as a 
sermon (and it would not be a very long one) 
in which the preacher sets forth the vanity, or 
emptiness of this life considered within itself. 
His text, to use a modern expression, is * 'Van- 
ity of Vanities, all is Vanity' ' (i: 2); and if this 
life ends all, we must admit the truth of the 
proposition. There are some passages in the 
book which are quite obscure, and some which 
have the appearance of being contradictory to 
others; but when we keep in view the author's 
purpose of looking at this life as if it were our 
only state of existence these difficulties nearly 
all disappear. In the final conclusion the au- 
thor says: ' ' This is the end of the matter: All 
hath been heard; fear God, and keep his com- 
mandments; for this is the whole duty of man; 
for God shall bring every work into judgment, 
with every hidden thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil." 

Thisbook should be read in connection with 
the life of Solomon, which is set forth in the 
books of I Kings and II Chronicles. With this 
piece of history fresh in the memory, the beauty 



THE POETICAL BOOKS. 75 

of the sermon will be more highly appreciated, 
and its power more seriously felt. * 

5. The Song of Songs. The title which 
this short poem assigns itself is, ' * The Song of 
Songs, which is Solomon's" (i: i). If there is 
any book in the Bible which found a place in it 
by a mistake or misjudgment of those who put 
the inspired book together, it must be this; for 
it is so totally unlike all the rest that it is diffi- 
cult to see what connection it can have with the 
general design of the whole. Many interpreters 
have affected to find in it a parabolic meaning, 
and even a foreshadowing of the love of the 
Church for Christ; while others have regarded 
it as nothing more than a love- song with a very 
obscure connection of thought. According to 
either view it has afforded little edification to 
the great majority of Bible readers ; and unless 
some significance can be found in it hereafter 
which has not yet been pointed out, it will con- 



'1. There are many considerations that make the Solomonic au- 
thorship of Ecclesiastes extremely improbable, and indicate that a 
writer in one of the latest periods of Old Testament history used Sol- 
omon as a character into whose mouth he could put the words which 
he desired to speak. He was troubled by the fact that nothing that 
one possesses or does seems to give satisfaction. He did not even 
consider a future life probable, for the hope of eternal life was only 
revealed in its fulness by Christ. The answer which Ecclesiastes 
makes to the problem of life is that one should receive all its good 
with thankfulness, and use wisely all that God gives. — W. 



76 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

tinue to be but little read, and of but little prac- 
tical value. 1 



CHAPTER XI. 

THK BOOKS OF EXILE. 2 

We have now made mention of all the books 
of the Old Testament connected with events 
preceding the Babylonian exile. We come 
next to two books concerned exclusively with 
events which occurred in the ^xile, the books 
of Daniel and Esther. 

i. Daniel. This book, as also the exper- 
iences of Daniel himself, spans the whole period 
of the captivity of Judah; for it begins in the 



1. It is a dramatic poem. The earlier interpretation made it an 
epithalamium, or marriage song, recording the love and marriage of 
Solomon and his queen. The later, and now generally accepted in- 
terpretation makes the heroine a maiden of Shulem or Shunem, whom 
King Solomon takes into his court and attempts by flattery and mag- 
nificent promises to separate from her lover, to whom, however, she 
remains faithful and is at last restored. The book is a beautiful trib- 
ute to true and constant love, which no wealth can dazzle and no 
power can overawe. It is also a refreshing picture of the virtues 
to be found among the common people in an age of the greatest splen- 
dor and of growing corruption in the court of Solomon. The spiritual 
lessons of the book are not to be found in mystical allusions to Christ 
and the Church, but in the purity and constancy of love, lessons 
needed in no age more than our own. — W. 

2. In addition to the books here named as belonging to the 
Exile Period, it will be remembered that portions of Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel came from the years of the captivity, and the whole of 
Isaiah, xl-lxvi, deals with this situation. — W. 






THE BOOKS OF EXILE. 77 

third year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, eight 
years before the captivity of Jehoiachin (i: i), 
and it ends in the third year of Cyrus, king of 
Persia, two years after the captivity of Judah 
ended (x: i; Ezrai: 1-3). It indirectly repre- 
sents itself as having been written by Daniel ; 
for although he is spoken of in the first six 
chapters in the third person, as was common 
in historical narration, he speaks in the first 
person in the other six. He was connected 
with the royal family of Judah (i: 3), and it is 
probable that he and his companions were taken 
to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar as hostages for 
the good conduct of Jehoiakim who w T as tribu- 
tary to the Babylonians. He saw the beginning 
and the end of the Babylonian Empire, and he 
was more or less connected with the palace 
through the whole period. 

The events recorded in the first six chap- 
ters were evidently intended by the Lord for 
two distinct purposes: first, to keep the captive 
Jews from losing their faith in Jehovah ; and sec- 
ond, to make the power and majesty of Jehovah 
known to the heathen population of the Baby- 
lonian Empire. The Jews must have been 
strongly tempted, when they saw the Holy City 
and God's holy temple in ruins, and themselves 
transported into a foreign land by a heathen 



78 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

nation, to think either that Jehovah had aban- 
doned them in violation of man}' promises made 
to their fathers, or that he was not able to cope 
with the gods of the great heathen empire. 
Either conclusion would cause them to fall in 
with the religion of their conquerers, and thus 
to forfeit all the good things which Jehovah had 
promised them. On the other hand, the con- 
querors, ascribing as they and all the heathen 
nations did, their victories to the superior 
power of the gods they worshipped, unavoid- 
ably reached the conclusion that their gods 
were far more powerful than Jehovah. But 
this false reasoning was corrected by the 
series of occurrences which are here recorded. 

The other six chapters of Daniel, all pro- 
phetic, made many clear revelations of the des- 
tiny provided for Israel; and, although some 
of them were obscure then, and are more or 
less so to this day, others were almost as intel- 
ligible as history, and proved a great source of 
comfort and encouragement to the Jews in the 
tierce conflicts through which they passed be- 
tween the exile and the coming of Christ. 

2. Esther. The events recorded in this 
book took place in the reign of Ahasuerus, 
otherwise called Xerxes. His Persian name, 
spelled in English letters, reads thus: Khshay- 



THE BOOKS OF EXILE. 79 

arsha. The Greeks, in trying to render it into 
their language, got it Xerxes; and the He- 
brews, Ahasuerus. The latter comes nearer the 
original, but European nations have adopted in 
common usage the Greek rendering. This 
king began to reign about fifty years after the 
decree of Cyrus permitting the Jews to return 
to their own land, and consequently, the events 
of the book, though they belong to the history 
of the Jews in exile, occurred between fifty and 
sixty years after the close of the seventy years 
predicted by Jeremiah. In other words, they 
occurred among those Jews who chose, after 
the proclamation of Cyrus, to remain in foreign 
lands. 

The book gives an account of a crisis in the 
history of the Jewish people. A decree was 
sent forth by the king that every Jew in his 
kingdom should be put to death on a certain 
day. The circumstance which led to the issu- 
ing of this decree, and the measures by which 
the calamity was averted, constitute the sub- 
ject matter of the book, and they present a 
most remarkable series of divine providences. 
In Esther the name of God is not once men- 
tioned. The reader is left to discover God's 
hand for himself. 



80 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE POST-KXIUC BOOKS. 

The books written in Jerusalem after the 
return from the exile, now commonly called 
post-exilic, are five in number, viz : Ezra, 
Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. 
We shall speak of them in this order. 

i. Ezra. This book begins, as Chronicles 
left off, with the decree of Cyrus for the release 
of the captives and their return to their native 
land. * It gives a little fuller account of this 
decree, and also an account of the return of 
the first caravan of Jews under the command of 
Zerubbabel, called also "Sheshbazzar the prince 
of Judah " (i:8; ii:2; iii: 8.) He was the 
prince of Judah, in the sense that being a grand- 
son of Jehoiachin, the last king, he would have 
been entitled to the throne if Israel had been 
an independent nation (I Chron iii: 17-19). 
The reader will be surprised to find, from this 
account, how small a number of the Jews saw 
fit to take advantage of the offer made to them 



1. By comparing Ezra i : 1-3 with II Chron. xxxvi : 22, 23 it will 
be seen that the two books were evidently one originally, but were 
separated, perhaps by accident, in the middle of v. 3, and the earlier 
verses were copied from the II Chron. passage to make the begin- 
ning of what became a new book. — W. 



THE POST-EXILIC BOOKS. 81 

by Cyrus. The rest had become satisfied to 
remain in foreign lands, where they were 
doubtless prosperous in the main, rather than 
return to a depopulated country, and go through 
the hardship of rebuilding their cities and 
homes. This reflects the more credit on the 
zeal and faith of those who did enter into this 
hard undertaking. The joy with which they 
made the journey has been depicted in the 
most glowing and hyperbolical imagery. Read 
in this connection chapters xl-lii of the book 
of Isaiah, and see in what rapturous strains 
the writer dwells upon this theme, returning 
to it again and again amid other topics of which 
he writes. 

All went well with the people in their 
efforts to rebuild the temple during the rest of 
the reign of Cyrus; but in subsequent reigns 
the Samaritans, as the mixed races were then 
called that inhabited the territory of the north- 
ern tribes, obtained a royal decree for the sus- 
pension of the work, and it was not till the 
second year of the reign of Darius that the 
work was renewed. Then the two prophets 
Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the people 
to renew the work, and they did so without 
waiting to hear from the king. Another effort 
was made to stop them, but when the king 



82 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

was heard from it was with a decree that the 
* work should not be hindered. The account 
of these proceedings in chapters i-vi, is full of 
interest and instruction. The time from the 
return till the completion of the temple was 
twenty-one years, as is known from the inter- 
vening reigns of Persian kings. 

Between the sixth and seventh chapters of 
Ezra there is a gap in time of fifty -seven years, 
extending from the sixth year of Darius to the 
seventh year of Artaxerxes (vi: 15; vii: 8.) In 
this interval Xerxes had reigned, and made his 
famous expedition into Greece, and the events 
of the book of Esther bad taken place. Why 
Ezra leaves it blank is not known, but perhaps, 
on account of the troublous character of the 
times he had nothing special to record that was 
not already written in Esther. This book marks 
the division between the very distinct parts of 
the book of Ezra, the first six chapters giving 
the history of the caravan which returned under 
Zerubbabel until they had completed the tem- 
ple, while the second part gives the personal 
labors of Ezra. He came to Jerusalem with a 
letter from the king authorizing him to establish 
the law of God as the law of the land, and to 
enforce it if need be, by all the usual penalties 
of violated law (vii: 25-26.) This was a matter 






THE POST-EXILIC BOOKS. 83 

of supreme importance to the Jews ; for hitherto 
they had been governed in civil matters only by 
the laws of Persia. Ezra, being a priest and a 
scribe, had by hard study specially qualified 
himself for this important task, and he proved 
himself eminently worthy of the confidence 
which the king reposed in him. He preserves 
a list of those who reformed under his entreat- 
ies, so that their sons and daughters after them 
might know that their fathers were among the 
true hearted who turned back to the Lord when 
rebuked for their sins. 

2. Nehemiah. In the ancient Hebrew 
manuscripts the books of Ezra and Nehemiah 
were written as if they were one ; but the title, 
"The Words of Nehemiah,the son of Hachaliah" 
(i: i) clearly indicate the beginning of another 
book, and justify the separation which was 
made in the Greek translation at an early per- 
iod. While the temple was rebuilt by Zerubba- 
bel, it was the work of Nehemiah to rebuild the 
city walls. He went from Babylon for this pur- 
pose, thirteen years after Ezra went there to 
establish the law. That which moved him to 
the undertaking is set forth in the first chapter. 
The distress there depicted, which overwhelmed 
him on hearing that ''the city, the place of his 
fathers' sepulchres/ ' was lying waste and its 



84 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

gates burned with fire, is accounted for if he had 
previously thought that since the return of so 
many of the captives the walls had been rebuilt; 
though it is supposed by some scholars that they 
had been rebuilt and had been again thrown 
down within the thirteen years just mentioned. 

It will be seen by reading these six chap- 
ters, that Nehemiah was equally zealous and 
self-sacrificing with Ezra, but quite different 
in his way. While the latter was a priest by 
descent, and a scribe by profession, Nehemiah 
held a civil office, being cup-bearer to the king; 
and he had no scruple, therefore, about asking 
the king for a military escort when he obtained 
permission to go to Jerusalem (ii: 9). He 
acted as governor of the land for twelve years, 
yet he received no salary; he made no purchase 
of lands, though doubtless there was a tempt- 
ing opportunity for speculation in them; he 
made his own servants work on the wall; and 
he fed at his table a daily average of one hun- 
dred and fifty men, Jews and visitors from other 
lands (v: 14-17). His expenditure must have 
amounted to a very considerable fortune. 

The other seven chapters of the book are 
occupied with some details of Nehemiah's gov- 
ernment of the people after the completion of 
the walls. 



THE POST-EXILIC BOOKS. 85 

At the end of his leave of absence from the 
king he came back to Babylon, and H after 
certain days" he came again to Jerusalem 
(ii: 6; xiii: 6, 7). During his absence inter- 
marriages with the heathen had again sprung 
up, and other abuses crept in. 

The narrative closes without a hint as to 
the subsequent life or death of either Nehe- 
miah or Ezra; and thus ends the history con- 
tained in the Old Testament. 

3 . Haggai. In this little book we are taken 
back in time to the second year of Darius, and 
the first day of the sixth month of that year 
(i: 1). There had been a failure of crops in 
the land, and the prophet came to Zerubbabel 
and Joshua the priest with " the word of the 
Lord," telling them that it was because the peo- 
ple had been building good houses for them- 
selves, and neglecting to build the Lord's 
house. The result was, that these men and 
the people were aroused, and began the work 
anew on the twenty-fourth day of the same 
month. Thisw r as before the issuing of the 
decree of Darius, giving them permission to 
renew the building (Ezra vi: 1-5). Having the 
Lord's permission and commacd, they went to 
work without waiting for that of the king. This 
much is set forth in the first chapter. 



86 <&. GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

About a month later, as we read in the sec- 
ond chapter, the word of the Lord came again 
to the prophet, promising that, although this 
house that they were building seemed to the 
old people as nothing when compared with 
Solomon's, it should at a future day be filled 
with glory, and the latter glory of it should be 
greater than the former ; " and in this place I 
will give peace, saith Jehovah of Hosts. " 
This prediction had evident reference to the 
connection of Jesus and his apostles with that 
house; for by this its greatest glory was attained. 

About two months later, on the 24th of the 
ninth month of the same year, two other mes- 
sages were brought by Haggai, the first remind- 
ing the people again that the crop failure was 
a punishment sent by the Lord, but promising 
that from that day forth he would bless them. 
The second was a personal message to Zerub- 
babel, promising him that while Jehovah was 
going to overthrow all the nations and king- 
doms, he would take him and make him "a sig- 
net.' ' As Zerubbabel was a lineal ancestor of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, this seems to be an 
allusion to the high honor conferred on him in 
making him such. 

From this we see that the five brief mes- 
ages which were sent by God through this 



THE POST-EXILIC BOOKS. 87 

prophet, were all delivered within the space of 
three months, and were all intended to encour- 
age the people in the arduous labor of rebuild- 
ing the temple. 

4. Zechariah. While Haggai began his 
prophesying in the sixth month of the second 
year of Darius, and closed it in the ninth month, 
Zechariah began in the eighth month of the 
same year. His first message was a very brief 
one,exhorting the people not to be as their fath- 
ers had been, to whom the former prophets had 
spoken, but to take warning from the fate that 
befell them. Here is found that well known 
and beautiful passage, * * Your fathers, where 
are they ? and the prophets, do they live for- 
ever ?» (i: 1-6.) 

About three months later, on the 24th day 
of the eleventh month, in the same year of Dar- 
ius, he brought his second message, consisting 
of eight symbolical and very curious visions, 
all of which, interpreted to him by an angel, 
gave encouragement to the people with respect 
to the temple (i: 1-6; 15.) Thus we see that 
the first work of Zechariah, like all the work 
of Haggai, was to co-operate with each other 
and with Zerubbabel and Joshua the priest, in 
pushing forward the reconstruction of the tem- 
ple. This was necessary to the fulfillment of 



88 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

God's purposes and promises respecting Israel 
and the coming kingdom of Christ. 

From the beginning of the seventh chapter 
to the close of the book the prophet is occupied 
with other themes, and his style rises at times 
to the grandeur which characterizes the finest 
passages in Isaiah. 1 He rebukes all manner 
of sins, and calls powerfully to righteous living. 
He predicts the gathering of the ten tribes, and 
the downfall of those nations which oppressed 
Israel. He foresees calamities yet to befall 
Jerusalem, more disastrous than those of her 
recent experiences; but these are to be fol- 
lowed by a time of peace and holiness. In 
the midst of these predictions we find several 
passages which are quoted in the New Testa- 
ment as being fulfilled in connection with the 
life of Jesus (xi: 12-13; x ^ : I_ 7)- 

5. Malachi. As Nehemiah was the last of 
the Old Testament historians, Malachi was the 
last of the prophets; and they co-operated with 
each other; for while Malachi, unlike Haggai 
and Zechariah, does not give the date of bis 
message, the contents of it show clearly that 
he spoke after the temple had been completed 

1. The unity of the book of Zechariah is one of the open ques- 
tions of Bibical study. Indications of a different horizon and author- 
ship are found by some scholars in the sections ix-xi and xii-xiv. 
-W. 



THE POST-EXILIC BOOKS. 89 

and the regular service therein had been re- 
newed. As he makes no allusion to the 
troubles about rebuilding the walls, this work 
also seems to have been completed. And as 
he rebukes the people for intermarriage with 
the heathen, this agrees with the state of things 
when Nehemiah came the second time to Jeru- 
salem, and broke up that practice. 

The book has the form of a single discourse 
by the prophet. He begins with the fact that 
God had loved Jacob and hated Esau, where 
the two brothers are put for the nations that 
sprang from them; and he predicts disaster yet 
to befall the latter (i: 1-5). 

He then rebukes the priests for treating 
with contempt the law of sacrifices, a corrup- 
tion which grew out of their avarice (i: 6-1 1, 
16). He x»ext predicts the coming of the 
Messiah to the temple, and the work of puri- 
fication and separation which he will execute 
(ii: i7-iii:6). Turning back to his own time he 
rebukes the people severely for withholding 
their tithes and offerings, and for pretending 
that there was no profit in serving the Lord 
(iii: 7-15 ) He predicts the final blessedness of 
those that feared the Lord, and the destruction 
of those who feared him not (iii: i6-iv:3). 

As a most fitting close of the Old Testa- 



90 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

ment, he looks back and says to the people, 
' ' Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, 
which I commanded unto him in Horeb for 
all Israel, even statutes and judgments;' ' and 
then he looks forward to the work of John the 
Baptist, and says, " Behold, I will send you 
Elijah the prophet before the great and 
terrible day of the Lord come. And he shall 
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, 
and the heart of the children to their fathers; 
lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." 



We have now given a brief introduction to 
every one of the thirty-nine books of the- Old 
Testament, and we have come down to within 
about four and a half centuries of the birth of 
Christ, with which the New Testament begins. 
Of that interval we have no inspired history, and 
of much of it we have no history at all. The 
most that can now be known of it is derived 
from the books called The Apochrypha, some 
of which are edifying, some historical, and 
some fabulous. It would be well for the stu- 
dent to read them after becoming reasonably 
familiar with the Old Testament. Josephus 
gives a history of this period as he derived it 
from these sources. Some portions of it are 
thrillingly interesting, and a knowledge of it 



DIVISIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 91 

enables one to better understand the views and 
practices of the Jews in the days of Christ and 
the apostles. l 



CHAPTER XIII. 

DIVISIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

The general divisions of the New Testa- 
ment are well known. The four Gospels are 
biographical; Acts of Apostles is historical; 
the Epistles, as their name indicates, are epis- 
tolary, and the Revelation, or the Apocalypse 
as scholars generally prefer to style it, is 
descriptive and prophetic. 

The Gospels do not pretend to give a com- 
plete biography of Christ; but only a few such 
facts in his career as serve to establish his 
claim to be the Christ the Son of God; and a 
few specimens of his teaching and his predic- 
tions. One of them declares the first to be its 
purpose (John xxx: 31), and the contents of 
the others show that the same is true of them. 
John also shows the fragmentary character of 
his narrative by saying, in hyperbolical terms, 
that if all that Jesus did should be written, he 



1. See list of apocryphal books in the Appendix.— W. 



92 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

supposes that the world itself could not contain 
the books that would be written, (xxi: 25.) 

The book of Acts is a general history of 
the church for about thirty years from its be- 
ginning; the Epistles are communications from 
certain of the Apostles, that is, from Paul, 
James, Peter, Jude and John, all addressed to 
churches or to individual Christians; and the 
Apocalypse sets forth in the main the destiny 
of the church. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 

These are not the first books of the New 
Testament that were written; for, as we shall 
see later, some of Paul's epistles preceded 
them; but they are first in the order of the 
events of which they speak, and for this reason 
they very properly occupy the first part of the 
book when all are printed in one volume. 
Having stated in the preceding section their 
general design, we shall now consider them 
separately. 

1. Matthew. This writer introduces Jesus, 
in the first verse of the book, as " The son of 



THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 93 

David, the son of Abraham. ' ' By this title he 
designates him as the promised seed of David 
who was to sit upon David's throne and reign 
forever, and he also keeps in mind the ancient 
promise to Abraham of a seed in whom all the 
nations of the earth were to be blessed. In 
other words, this introduces him as the Mes- 
siah, or the Christ; and it shows that Matthew's 
main purpose was to set forth the Messiahship 
of Jesus, rather than his divinity. With this 
agree the contents of the book; for while the 
Sonship of Jesus is by no means overlooked in 
the narrative, but is clearly and emphatically 
set forth, his Messiahship is the logical point 
chiefly aimed at; hence the many quotations 
from the Old Testament of predictions and 
types which were fulfilled in his person and in 
his work. Matthew has more of these than 
have all three of the other Gospels. In har- 
mony with the same purpose Matthew devotes 
more of his space than any of the others to the 
teachings of Jesus, considerably more than half 
his boo* being made up of his formal speeches, 
besides many remarks made in the course of 
conversations with friends and foes. To such 
an extent is this true, that a Christian writer 
of the second century called his book'* The 
Oracles, ,, meaning thereby, divine utterances. 



94 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

This was an attempt to give a name to the book 
derived from the chief part of its contents. In 
consequence of this peculiarity of the book, as 
well as its location at the beginning of the vol- 
ume, Matthew is more read by the people, and 
more familiar to them, than any of the other 
Gospels, or any other book, perhaps, in the 
Bible. 

The book naturally divides itself into three 
distinct parts; the first (chapters i: i-iv: 12) 
giving the genealogy of Jesus ; his birth ; some 
of the events of his infancy ; his baptism and his 
temptation : The second, his ministry in Galilee 
(iv: 13-xix: 1); and the third, the events from 
his departure out of Galilee till his resurrection 
from the dead (xix: i-xxviii: 20). The last divi- 
sion, though it occupies only six months of the 
three years and more of his ministry, fills nearly 
as much space as the account of the whole 
period preceding this, showing the importance 
attached by the author to the scenes connected 
with the last sufferings, the death, and the res- 
urrection of the Lord. * 

2. Mark. This writer was not an apostle, 
but he was the son of a certain woman in Jeru- 

1. The Gospel of Matthew was addressed primarily to the Jew- 
ish people, and therefore uses the Old Testament material bearing 
upon the life of Christ. It is the national Gospel, and its themes are 
Jesus the Messiah, .the Teacher and the Rejected King 1 . — W. 



THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 95 

salem whose name was Mary, and whose house 
was a place of resort for the disciples (Acts xii: 
12). She was an aunt of Barnabas, seeing that 
Mark was his cousin (Col. iv: 10.) Having 
grown up in Jerusalem, where his mother was 
prominent among the disciples, he must himselt 
have been acquainted with the apostles, and 
probably with Jesus. It is said by early Chris- 
tian writers that in writing his Gospel he gave 
the account of Jesus which Peter was in the 
habit of giving in his discourses ; and there is 
much in his narrative to confirm this tradition, 
especially the fact that he tells plainly every- 
thing that Peter didor said which was not cred- 
itable to him, and omits nearly all that was. 
This is the w r ay that Peter would do if he was as 
modest as we suppose him to have been. 

Mark introduces Jesus at once as the Son of 
God, saying in the first line of his book, "The 
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God." This shows that his main purpose, 
logically, was to prove the divinity rather than 
the Messiahship of Jesus. In this he differs from 
Matthew; and in carrying out this plan he de- 
votes a much larger per cent, of his space to 
miracles than does any other of the four, seeing 
that it is this, rather than prophecies fulfilled, 
that prove his divinity. He makes a different 



96 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

"beginning" from that of Matthew, in that he 
begins with the preaching of John the Baptist, 
and Matthew begins with the genealogy and 
birth of Jesus. 

No one who is familiar with Matthew can 
read Mark without noticing a striking similar- 
ity between them in the facts that they relate, 
and sometimes in the words that they employ; 
but on close comparison of the two it will be 
seen that in almost, if not quite all these in- 
stances, Mark has some additional items which 
distinguish his account from Matthew's. The 
student should constantly keep his eye open 
for these; for they not only show the difference 
between the two writers, making each stand 
out before the mind by himself, but they are 
necessary to a full knowledge of the incidents 
with which they are connected. The same 
may be said in reference to events mentioned 
by three, or by all of the Gospel writers. Study 
all, and combine the particulars given by all. 

Mark's book is divided into two parts, in 
the first of which he confines himself to the 
ministry in Galilee, as Matthew does in his 
second part; and in the second, after reporting 
a few conversations beyond the Jordan, he 
confines himself to the closing scenes in Jeru- 
salem. To this second part, although the time 






THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 97 

included in it is only six months, he devotes 
seven out of his sixteen chapters, thus show- 
ing as Matthew does, that he regarded this as 
the part of the life of Jesus that was most im- 
portant for his readers to be acquainted with. x 
Iyuke and John follow the same plan. 

3. Luke. The third Gospel differs from 
the first and second more than the latter do 
from each other. It records some events in 
common with the other two, but the plan of 
the author, as well as his subject matter, is 
quite different. In comparing his accounts 
with those of the other two, the differences 
sometimes appear much like contradictions, and 
so they have been pronounced by unfriendly 
writers. But it is never just to charge two 
or more writers with contradicting one 
another, which is the same as charging one or 
more of them with error, when there is any 
reasonable supposition that will permit all their 
statements to be true. Sometimes we have to 
study very carefully before we can find such a 
supposition, but as we are bound in justice to 
do it when we can, we must be slow to charge 
contradiction. This is a right rule in respect 

1. Mark's Gospel has been called the Gospel of Power. Jesus is 
the worker of miracles, the incarnation of power. As such the book 
would commend itself to the Roman type of mind, in which power 
held the chief place.— W. 



98 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

to all writers and speakers, and more especially 
should we observe it in respect to the inspired 
writers of the New Testament. 

Luke's first part, like Matthew's, is devoted 
to the infancy and the early life of Jesus, con- 
cluding with his temptation; and the amount of 
space which he gives to it is about the same as 
Matthew's, but he fills it with incidents nearly 
all of which are different from those given by 
Matthew. In order to learn all we can about 
this part of our Lord's life, we have to study 
the first part of Luke and that of Matthew to- 
gether; and it would be well for the student 
to do this before he reads farther in this 
Gospel. 

In his second part, Luke gives his atten- 
tion, like Matthew and Mark, to the ministry 
of Jesus in Galilee, saying nothing about some 
visits to Jerusalem which we know from John's 
Gospel were made during this period. This 
part extends from iv: 14 to ix: 62, less space 
than is given to it by either Matthew or Mark. 
Then follows the part of Luke in which he 
gives the most new information, and the whole 
of it is both instructive and charming. It in- 
cludes chapters ten to eighteen, more than 
either of the other parts. His last, or fourth 
part, like that of the other two Gospels, is de- 



THE GOSPELS AND AOTS. 99 

voted to the closing scenes of the last six 
months, and it includes his last six chap- 
ters. 

IyUke was a physician, as we learn from Paul 
(Col. iv : 14); and as Paul in the same passage 
seems to distinguish him from " those of the 
circumcision" (10, 14), it is inferred that he 
was a Gentile. If so he was the only Gentile 
who wrote any part of the New Testament. 
Like Mark, he was not an apostle; and conse- 
quently, he did not write as an eye-witness; but 
he informs us, in the opening paragraph of his 
book, that he had obtained his information from 
eye-witnesses and ministers of the w T ord, and 
that he had traced everything accurately from 
the beginning. As his book is addressed to 
one Theophilus, whose name is a Greek word, it 
appears that he intended it primarily for Greek 
readers. He addresses Theophilus by the title 
"most excellent," the usual Greek form of 
address to a man of high rank in the political 
world, from which it appears that at least a few 
such men had been brought into the church 
when Luke's Gospel was written. 1 

All three of the Gospels which we have now 

1, Luke's Gospel is his introduction to the story of the Apos- 
tolic Church and the ministry of Paul which is given in Acts. It 
emphasizes the' compassionate love of Jesus for humanity. It is the 
Gospel of Society.— W. 



100 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

noticed are supposed, to have been written not 
earlier than the year 60 A. D. 

4. John. This fourth Gospel differs very 
greatly in its subject matter from the other 
three. The latter are so much alike, that they 
are styled by scholars, " Synoptic/ ' that is, tak- 
ing the same view. But John carefully avoided 
repeating what the others had written, so that 
he has very few events in common with them; 
and when he has he gives details which they 
had omitted. This difference is accounted for 
by the fact, that writing much later, he had 
seen what they wrote, and cared not to repeat 
it; while their similarity to one another is 
accounted for by their having written without 
seeing one another's productions. They doubt- 
less wrote those incidents in the life of the 
Savior which had been commonly related by 
the apostles in their preaching. 

John's is the only Gospel which is chrono- 
logical throughout. By counting the feasts of 
the Jews which Christ attended, all of which 
are mentioned in this Gospel, we ascertain that 
there were three years from the visit to Jeru- 
salem mentioned in the second chapter, to the 
one at which he was crucified. If we could 
only ascertain how long it was from his bap- 
tism till that first visit, we would know the 



THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 101 

exact duration of his ministry; but at this 
point the chronology is not given. 

John begins with a very profound state- 
ment of the eternal and divine existence of 
Jesus before his advent into the world; and in 
harmony with this beginning he makes the 
divinity of the Lord throughout his book much 
more prominent than his Messiahship. In this 
he is like Mark; but unlike Mark he mentions 
comparatively few of the miracles; and he de- 
pends for his argument mainly on what Jesus 
said about himself. Consequently, we find 
Jesus in this Gospel saying much more about 
himself as the Son of God than in any or all 
of the others. 

One very remarkable fact about John's 
Gospel is that all of the events which he records 
occurred on only about thirty days, although 
the time between the first and the last was 
more than three years. In Mark we find the 
incidents of only seven or eight days more, if 
we leave out the forty of the Temptation, and 
in Luke and Matthew, less than a hundred. 
Any one of the four, if printed separately; 
would make only a small tract. This is a very 
striking proof that these men were under the 
controlling power of the Holy Spirit; for we 
may safely say that no four men ever lived, 



102 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

who, with such a life to write about, would 
have written so little if they had been left to 
themselves. 1 

5. Acts of Apostles. This book most prop- 
erly follows the four Gospels in our printed 
New Testament, not because it was written 
later; for it was written about the same time 
with the first three Gospels, and much earlier 
than the fourth; but because the facts recorded 
in it occurred next, and because this is its 
place from a logical point of view. It was 
after the resurrection of Jesus, with an account 
of which each of the Gospels closes, that Jesus 
gave to the apostles their commission to go and 
preach, having forbidden them to do so while 
he was yet in the flesh. This book gives an 
account of their going in obedience to this 
command, and preaching to the world. More- 
over, it shows how men under apostolic preach- 
ing, were brought to Christ and became mem- 
bers of his church; and as the Gospels are 
intended to convince men that Jesus is the 
Christ the Son of God, which is the first step 
toward becoming a Christian, this book shows 
what other steps the apostles required them to 

1. John's Gospel is the universal Gospel, the Gospel of the 
Incarnation, the Gospel of Spiritual Insight. It is the Go«pel of the 
heart of Christ as contrasted with the more objective writing of the 
Synoptists.— W. 



THE GOSPELS AND ACTS. 103 

take. For these reasons, this book which is 
occupied chiefly with accounts of cases of con- 
versions, is the next book to read after reading 
the Gospels. 

This book also shows how churches were 
planted and organized by the apostles, and 
how some very important questions which arose 
among the disciples were settled ; and in these 
particulars it is our inspiring guide for all time 
to come. Incidentally it records some of the 
noblest deeds of the early disciples for our en- 
couragement, and some of the worst for our 
warning. 

Like the Gospels, the book of Acts omits 
much more than it records; for after a brief ac- 
count of the activity of all the apostles in Jeru- 
salem, it is occupied for a time with the labors 
of Peter chiefly, and then, at the thirteenth 
chapter it assumes the character of a biography 
by following the labors of the apostle Paul al- 
most exclusively. This last feature was due, 
from a human point of view, to the fact that the 
author was more familiar with the labors of 
Paul than with those of any other apostle ; and 
from the divine point of view, to the fact that 
Paul's labors, after he became an apostle, were 
more abundant and more important than those 
of any other. From the nature of its contents, 



104 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

therefore, we find that the book is not the Acts 
of the apostles ; but, as the proper form of its 
title, Acts of Apostles , indicates, some of the acts 
of some of them. How few even of these acts it 
records, may be inferred from the consideration 
that though the period which it covers reaches 
from the resurrection of Christ to the year 63 A. 
D., about thirty years, all is compressed within 
the limits of a small pamphlet — another in- 
stance of the restraining power of the Holy 
Spirit. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE EPISTLES OF PAUI,. 

Paul was not only the greatest of the apos- 
tles in the extent of his labors and his suffer- 
ings, but he was the most voluminous of all 
the writers of the New Testament. His writ- 
ings occupy nearly one-fourth of the whole 
book. They are not printed in the order in 
which they were written. They all circulated 
originally, as did all the books of the New Tes- 
tament, as separate documents; and when they 
were collected into larger volumes, they were 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 105 

placed without regard to chronological order. 1 
We shall mention their dates, so far as these 
are known, when speaking of them individ- 
ually; for it is important, before reading an 
epistle, to consider who wrote it, when and 
under what circumstances it was written, and 
to whom it was addressed. 

It is sometimes said by unfriendly writers, 
that Paul is the real author of Christianity, 
meaning that he made out of that which was 
first preached a system which had not been 
intended by Christ. The charge is false, yet 
in the mind of the great Head of the Church 
it was allotted to Paul to elaborate, and to set 
forth much more fully than others did, the 
divine teachings of Jesus; and also to add much 
to the revelation of God's will which was first 
announced by Jesus. No man can, therefore, 
fully understand the doctrine of Christ with- 
out the aid of Paul's exposition of it. Hence 
the importance to every one of studying care- 
fully his Epistles. 

i . Romans. Although the Epistle to the 
Romans was not the first written by Paul, it is 
well that it is placed first, and next after Acts; 



1. The order of the Epistles, in the collection, as of the Pro- 
phetic books was determined not by date of writing, but to a 
large extent, by size.— W. 



106 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

for its chief subject is a discussion of the 
grounds on which a sinner is justified before 
God, and it is well for the sinner, as soon as 
possible after he has turned to the Lord, to be 
made acquainted with this subject. Passing 
out of Acts into Romans is the forward step 
which he next needs to take. 

This epistle should be read in connection 
with the twentieth and twenty-first chapters of 
Acts, from which the reader can see that it 
was written in Corinth just before Paul's last 
journey to Jerusalem was begun. Being writ- 
ten to a church containing in its membership 
a large number of well matured members with 
rich and varied experiences, its discussions of 
important themes are more profound than 
those in any other epistle. 

The chief theme of the epistle is the great 
doctrine of justification by faith. The apostle 
shows that the ground of our justification be- 
fore God is our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
as distinguished from works of law. He was 
led to this discussion by the teaching of certain 
Jews that we are to be justified by keeping 
perfectly the law. To the propounding of his 
doctrine and the refutation of objections to it, 
the apostle devotes the first eleven chapters of 
his epistle, and the rest is given to exhortations 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 107 

and the recital of interesting experiences of 
himself and others. There are some things in 
the doctrinal part which are not adapted to the 
minds of children, but all can read with profit 
the last part. 

2. First Corinthians. Some remarks in 
the last chapter of this epistle, connected with 
the nineteenth chapter of Acts, show where the 
apostle was when he wrote it. The planting 
of the Corinthian church is described in the 
eighteenth chapter of Acts, and these two chap- 
ters in the latter book should be read before 
beginning the study of the epistle. Not much 
information can be obtained from those about 
the condition of the church when the epistle 
was written; for this we are dependent chiefly 
on the epistle itself. As we read the latter, we 
find, one after another, the circumstances in 
the condition of the church which called forth 
the epistle and suggested the topics which it 
treats. These are all of a practical character, 
corrective of various kinds of misconduct which 
had sprung up among the members of this 
church since Paul had left them. For this 
reason this is one of the most valuable of all 
the epistles for the regulation of the life and 
deportment of a church. 

3. Second Corinthians, By comparing 



108 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

i: 8-1 1; ii: 12-13; and vii: 5-7 of the epistle, with 
Acts xix: 23; xx : 1, we learn the place and the 
circumstances of the apostle when this epistle 
was written. He had heard through Titus, who 
is here mentioned for the first time, the effects 
of his first epistle to the same church, and this 
information led to the writing of the second. 
The condition of the church, together with the 
great peril through which the apostle had just 
passed in Ephesus, combined very greatly to de- 
press his spirits ; and consequently, this is the 
saddest of all the epistles in the New Testa- 
ment. It reveals much more fully than any of 
the other epistles of Paul, or even the thrilling 
narratives in Acts, the depths of sorrow and suf- 
fering through which this great apostle was 
continually wading in the prosecution of his 
mission to the Gentiles. The inner life of Paul 
is more fully revealed here than elsewhere, and 
this gives the principal value to us of this 
admirable epistle. * 

4, Galatians. There is little in this epis- 
tle to indicate the time or the place at which it 
was written. The surprise which the writer ex- 
presses that the Galatians should have turned 

1. A lost epistle earlier than I Corinthians is mentioned (I Cor. 
v: 9) and perhaps another lost letter is referred to in II Cor. ii: 4 
and vii : 8, which passages do not seem to refer to I Corinthians. 
— W. 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 109 

so soon away from him to another gospel (i: 6), 
shows that it was written very soon after his 
last visit, but this is quite indefinite. He had 
come from Galatia to Ephesus, and after two 
years and three months there he went through 
Macedonia to Greece (Acts xviii: 23;xix: i, 21, 
22;xx: 1,2.) Some scholars think that he wrote 
the epistle while yet in Ephesus, which was less 
than three years from the time he left the Ga- 
latians ; and others, that he wrote it after he 
reached Corinth, which was a few months 
later. 

We know nothing of the Galatian churches 
except what we learn from the epistle; but from 
this we learn several very interesting facts as 
to their first reception of Paul and their pres- 
ent relation to him, and also the cause of their 
present alienation from him. These spring 
upon the reader of the epistle like flashes ot 
light and sudden darkness, and we shall not 
anticipate them here. 

In opposition to certain false teachers who 
were nominal Christians and perverters of the 
truth, Paul teaches here, as in Romans, that the 
ground of our justification before God is obe- 
dient faith, and not works of law. The dis- 
cussion is brief but conclusive, and he follows 
it with some admirable and always needed 






110 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

teaching and exhortations on the practical 
duties of Christian life. 

5. Ephesians. It is doubtful, to say the 
least, whether this epistle ought to bear the title 
which it has; for there is a total absence of those 
personal greetings which abound in Paul's 
other epistles addressed to churches which he 
planted; and this is unaccountable if he was 
writing to a church with which he had labored 
more than two years — longer than he stayed 
with any other. He also speaks of the faith ot 
these brethern as if it was with him a matter of 
hearsay rather than of personal knowledge (i: 
15-16); and he refers to own apostl ship to the 
Gentiles as a matter of hearsay with them, if 
they had heard it at all (iii: 1-4) With these 
indications agrees the fact that in some very 
early manuscript copies of the epistle the words 
" at Ephesus " in the salutation (i: 1) are not 
found. It is now most commonly supposed to 
have been written for a kind of circular letter, 
and sent to several churches, that at Ephesus 
among them; and that the name Ephesus got 
into some early copies from the fact that 
Ephesus was the principal of the cities for 
which it was intended. It was written while 
Paul was a prisoner in Rome (iii: 1; iv: r; vi: 
18-20). 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. Ill 

The epistle opens with some very grand 
utterances about the eternal purpose and fore- 
knowledge of God respecting Christ and his 
work of redemption, and also respecting the 
call of the Gentiles to be partakers with God's 
ancient people in his grace. This part closes 
with the third chapter, and Paul's prayer for 
the brethren addressed, which closes this chap- 
ter, is one of the most impressive passages in 
all his writings. It should be studied as a 
model of earnest prayer and lofty sentiment. 
The remainder of the epistle is of a practical 
character, having respect to the unity of the 
church, to its growth in every virtue, and to 
the details of Christian life on the part of all 
classes of disciples. Especially remarkable 
and valuable is the passage in the last chapter, 
in which the apostle runs a parallel between 
the pieces of armor worn by an ancient warrior, 
and the various duties and privileges of a 
Christian in his struggle against the power of 
darkness. Fighting and running foot races 
are favorite illustrations with Paul, because in 
each, as in the Christian life, a man has to be 
doing his best all the time to avoid being 
defeated. 

6. Philippians. The account of planting 
the church at Philippi is given in Acts xvi: 



112 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

6-40, and it should be read before beginning 
the study of the epistle. The fact that Paul 
was in bonds at the time of writing (i: 12 13); 
that the pretorian guard, which was the body 
guard of the Emperor kept at Rome, had all 
heard of his preaching (i: 13-14); and that he 
sends to the Philippians the salutation of some 
belonging to the household of Caesar (iv: 22), 
show very plainly that the epistle was written, 
as was Ephesians while Paul was a prisoner in 
Rome. This is the imprisonment mentioned 
at the close of Acts. The immediate occasion 
of his writing was the circumstance that a 
brother named Epaphroditus, having come 
from Philippi to Rome to bring a contribution 
for PauPs necessities (iv: 10-20), had been 
taken sick, and the Philippians had heard that 
he was very near the point of death ; so Paul 
sent him back, and doubtless made him the 
bearer of this epistle (ii: 19-30). The epistle 
is full of tender sympathy, and not a word of 
reproach to the church is found in it, but many 
words of warm commendation. 

7. Colossians. This is another of the epistles 
of the imprisonment, of which there are four, 
viz: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 
Philemon. That Paul was in prison when he 
wrote is seen from his remarks in iv: 2-4, and 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 113 

iv: 1 8. He appears to have sent the epistle by 
the hand of Tychicus, who also bore Ephesians 
(iv: 8; Eph. vi: 21, 22), and this shows that 
they were both written and forwarded at the 
same time. This accounts for the fact of a 
very great similarity between the two epistles, 
greater than between any other two. 

The first chapter of this epistle contains 
one of the grandest exhibitions of the present 
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ to be found 
anywhere in the New Testament. It also 
abounds in stirring exhortations to Christian 
activity and zeal, all of which are enforced by 
the apostle's own example. 

8. First Thessalonians. In coming to this 
epistle we turn back in point of time, from 
Paul's imprisonment mentioned at the close of 
Acts, to his first visit to Corinth, described in 
Acts xviii: 1- 18; for it was during that visit 
that the epistle was written. His labors at Thes- 
salonia are described in Acts xvii: 1-9. He 
went thence to Berea (10), thence to Athens 
(15), and thence to Corinth (xviii: 1). There 
Silas and Timothy, whom he had left behind, 
overtook him (xviii: 5); and in the epistle he 
says: "But when Timothy came even now 
unto us from you, etc.;" which shows that 
the epistle was written immediately on Timo- 



114 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

thy's arrival. This, as we learn from the 
chronology made out from the book of Acts, 
was in the year 52; and this is the earliest of 
Paul's epistles, and also the earliest book of 
the New Testament. * 

The epistle shows that the Thessalonian 
church was suffering greatly from persecution, 
but that it was conducting itself in such a 
manner as to spread the light of the gospel 
abroad through surrounding communities (i: 2- 
10). These faithful disciples being but partly 
instructed in Christian teaching, were in trouble 
respecting their deceased brethren; and this 
led Paul to give them one of the plainest possi- 
ble lessons about the resurrection of the dead, 
that by this information they might comfort 
one another (iv: 13-18). The same words have 
been a source of unspeakable comfort to the 
saints from that day to this, and they have 
served the purpose of a text on funeral occa- 
sions more frequently perhaps than any other 
passage in the Bible. 

9. Second Thessalonians. This epistle 
seems to have been written soon after the first 
to the same church; for the persecution men- 



1. Unless, as many scholars think, the epistle of James is to be 
dated about the year 50 A. D., in which case it would be chronolog- 
ically the first book of the New Testament. — W. 






THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 115 

tioned in the first was still in progress (i: 2, 
3), and the condition of the church in general 
was unchanged. It was written too, when the 
writer was solicitious about being delivered from 
"unreasonable and evil men/' which agrees 
with the interval between his withdrawal from 
the synagogue in Corinth to the house of Justus 
and the assurance given him by the Lord that 
no one should set on him to harm him (Acts 
xviii: 5-10). The most conspicuous matters 
discussed in it are the fate of the wicked at 
the second coming of the Lord, and the com- 
ing of * ' the man of sin ' ' here first mentioned 
by the apostle. It also contains some very plain 
and emphatic instruction as to how the church 
should deal with those members who walk dis- 
orderly; and in the close shows that Paul 
always wrote the salutations of his epistles with 
his own hand as a "token" of their genuineness. 
He was in the habit, as we have seen from 
Romans, of dictating his epistles to an amanu- 
ensis; but his autograph in the salutation identi- 
fied them as his. 

10. First Timothy. When Paul wrote this 
epistle he had left Timothy in Ephesus and gone 
into Macedonia (i: 3). During that portion of 
his life covered by Acts of Apostles he had 
never done this. He had only once gone from 



116 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

Ephesus into Macedonia, and then he had sent 
Timothy before him (Acts xix: 21,22; xx: 1). 
As Acts follows his career until his imprison- 
ment in Rome, where it closes, he must have 
made the visit to Ephesus here referred to, sub- 
sequent to that imprisonment. He must there- 
fore have been released from that imprisonment, 
as he expected to be, and have gone abroad 
once more in his apostolic work. 

This epistle was especially intended for the 
instructions of an Evangelist, which Timothy 
was, in regard to his labors among the churches. 
Consequently, it should be studied exhaust- 
ively by every preacher of the gospel- for his 
own guidance and edification, But much of the 
instruction given in it has reference to the duties 
of church officers; and therefore the epistle is a 
study for them as well as for preachers. More- 
over, the private members of the churches can- 
not know how to demean themselves toward the 
officers and the preachers, without knowing 
what duties and what authorities are imposed 
upon the latter; therefore it is a study for all 
church members, having different special aims 
for different classes. For a knowledge of the 
practical detail of church organization, we are 
more dependent on this epistle than on any 
other. 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 117 

It would be wise for the student, in con- 
nection with this epistle, or with the second 
to Timothy, to take his concordance and find 
all the places in which Timothy's name occurs, 
so as to become familiar with all that is writ- 
ten about him. He is one of the most inter- 
esting characters mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment. 

ii. Second Timothy. Paul is once more a 
prisoner (i: 8; 16-18; ii: 9); and it is the im- 
prisonment which terminated in his death 
(iv: 6-8; 16-18). It is the last writing which 
we have from his pen, and this imparts to it 
that peculiar interest which always attaches to 
the final utterances of a man of God. It is 
devoted mostly to personal matters, all the 
great doctrines of the faith having been set 
forth in previous documents The sadness of 
his situation is indirectly revealed, especially 
in the first chapter. The exhortations to Tim- 
othy, and to all the brethren, in the second 
chapter, are among the most stirring that Paul 
ever wrote; and the prediction of a great apos- 
tasy w T hich chiefly occupies the third chapter, 
sounds almost like a wail of despair in regard 
to the church's future; but the shout of triumph 
with which he greets his approaching death in 
the fourth chapter, has thrilled the souls of the 



118 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

saints as scarcely anything else in the Bible. 
If it so thrills us at this remote period, how 
must it have inflamed the hearts of Paul's fel- 
low-soldiers and of his thousands of converts! 
He was anxious to see Timothy once more be- 
fore he died; he begged him to come to him 
before winter, and to bring a cloak which he 
had left at Troas, and which he would need in 
the fireless prison should cold weather come 
before his execution. He also wanted some- 
thing to read, and he thought of doing some 
more writing; hence the request that Timothy 
should bring some books and parchments which 
he had also left at Troas (iv: 13-21). No one 
can read this epistle thoughtfully without be- 
ing better and wiser. 

12. Titus. But little is known of Titus. 
He is not once mentioned in Acts; and all that 
we know of him is found in four of PauPs 
epistles. He accompanied Paul and Barnabas 
from Antioch to Jerusalem at the time of the 
conference on Circumcision (Gal. ii: 1); he 
was afterward sent by Paul from Ephesus on an 
important mission to Corinth (II Cor. ii: 12, 
13; vii: 5-7; viii: 16-23; xii: 18); he was with 
Paul in the island of Crete after the release of 
the latter from Roman imprisonment, where he 
left him to set in order the things that were yet 






THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 119 

wanting in the churches planted there (Titus 
i: 5 ), and he was with Paul in Rome during his 
last imprisonment, but went thence to Dalmatia 
before Paul's death (II Tim. iv: 10). 

He was still in Crete when this epistle was 
addressed to him (i: 5); but was requested by 
Paul to come to Nicopolis as soon as another 
evangelist should come to take his place (iii: 12). 
The purpose of the epistle is very much the 
same as that of First Timothy; that is, to instruct 
Titus as an evangelist in regard to his labors 
among the churches, and at the same time to 
impart indirectly the same instruction to the 
churches. It is a study for young preachers, 
and not less so for all who would be useful in the 
church. Its first chapter, in connection with 
the third chapter of First Timothy, furnishes 
full instruction with reference to the qualifica- 
tions required for elders of the church; and as 
all members are sometimes called upon to act 
in the selection of these officers, these passages 
should be familiar to all. 

13. Philemon, This is one of the epistles 
of the imprisonment; that is, of the first im- 
prisonment in Rome (1,13). It was written in 
behalf of Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, who 
had run away from his master, had landed in 
Rome, had turned to the Lord under Paul's 



120 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

preaching, and for a while had been assisting 
Paul in his ministry (10-15). ^ au l broadly 
suggests to Philemon the propriety of setting 
him free, and promises to pay out of his own 
purse anything that Onesimus may owe Phile- 
mon (17-21). We learn indirectly from Colos- 
sians that Colosse was the home of Onesimus 
and therefore of Philemon his master. The 
latter was a man of great benevolence, and of 
apparent wealth. A church met in his house 

(2-7)- 

14. Hebrews, This epistle has been gen- 
erally regarded from the beginning as one of 
Paul's; but from the second century to the 
present time many eminent scholars have 
doubted or denied its Pauline authorship. 
Three early writers, all born in the second 
century, but active in the early part of the 
third, may be regarded as the representatives 
of the opinions on the question until recent 
times. Origen said that the thoughts were 
Paul's, but that the style was not. He was 
not able to decide who composed it. Clement 
of Alexandria was of the opinion that Paul 
wrote it in Hebrew, and that it was translated 
into Greek by Luke. He thought that the 
style was L,uke's, but the thoughts Paul's. 
Tertullian ascribed it to Barnabas. In modern 



THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. 121 

time Luther suggested that it might have 
been written by Apollos, and quite a number 
of recent scholars have revived and advocated 
this opinion. Perhaps the question will never 
be settled to the satisfaction of all. But though 
opinions thus vary as to the person who wrote 
it, all believing scholars agree that it was writ- 
ten by some apostolic man, and that its con- 
tents are to be received as true and authori- 
tative. 

The particular community to which it was 
addressed is left as obscure as the person who 
wrote it, though it is very clear from the con- 
tents that it was primarily intended for a com- 
munity of Christian Jews, and ultimately for 
all such and for all believers. It was quite 
difficult in the first generation of the church 
to induce the Jews who became Christians to 
altogether give up those parts of their old re- 
ligion which were set aside by the new; and 
some were found who were inclined to go back 
to Judaism after having accepted the Christian 
faith. It was for the benefit of these that the 
epistle was written. Its main line of argument 
shows the superiority of Christ as a priest over 
Aaron, and the superiority of his sacrifice of 
himself over the sacrifices of the law. It shows, 
indeed, not only the superiority of the former, 



122 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

but that the priesthood of Aaron and the sac- 
rifices of the law had been actually set aside 
to be observed no more. It shows also that 
all of the ritual of the law which depended on 
this priesthood and these sacrifices had passed 
away with them. 

While this was the immediate design of the 
book, its value was not exhausted in its effect 
on the Jews; for it contains many trains of 
thought and many practical exhortations which 
are adapted to the instruction and edification 
of all classes of disciples in every age and coun- 
try. Its exhortations, examples and warnings, 
like its chief argument,are drawn almost exclu- 
sively from the books of the Old Testament, and 
no one is prepared to read it intelligibly who 
is not familiar with those books, and especially 
with the law of Moses. In studying it one 
must make almost constant reference, either by 
memory, by the marginal references, or by a 
concordance, to the law books of Moses. Next 
to the epistle to the Romans, it is generally 
regarded as the most important epistle in the 
New Testament for setting forth the distinctive 
doctrines of Christ. 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 123 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE CATHOUC EPISTLES AND THE APOC- 
ALYPSE. 

The reader has probably noticed that the 
first epistle of John, and the epistles of James, 
Peter and Jude are styled in our printed Testa- 
ment, " General Epistles." The original of the 
word " general " is katholike, catholic, and from 
this word these epistles have for a long time 
been known as the Catholic Epistles. Sec- 
ond and Third John are included in the title, 
although addressed to individuals, because it 
was not desirable to classify them separately 
from the greater epistle by the same author. 
There are then seven Catholic Epistles, and we 
shall speak of them in the order in which we 
now find them. 

i. James. There were three eminent dis- 
ciples by this name, James the son of Zebedee, 
James the son of Alphaeus, both apostles; and 
James the brother of the I^ord. For reasons 
too elaborate to be given here, the last is now 
very generally understood to be the author of 
the epistle. From the time of Peter's impris- 
onment by Herod, which occurred in the year 
of the Iyord 44, till the death of James in the 



124 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

year 62, he seems to have resided continuously 
in the city of Jerusalem as the acknowledged 
head of that church in the absence of the apos- 
tles (Acts xii: 17; xv: 13; xxi: 17, 18; Gal. 
i: 18, 19; ii: 9-12). 

The epistle is addressed to "the twelve 
tribes of the Dispersion, ' ' which means those 
of the twelve tribes dispersed in other countries 
than Palestine (i: 1). The persons addressed, 
as the contents of the epistle show, were the 
Christian Jews of the Dispersion, and not the 
unbelievers. There were very few such Chris- 
tians until the apostles had been preaching 
many years, and had made converts in many 
lands; consequently the date of this epistle 
must have been near the close of the life of 
James, but in what year it is now impossible 
to ascertain. 1 The brethren addressed were 
suffering persecution, and the purpose of the 
writer is to encourage them to patient endur- 
ance of their afflictions. This purpose per- 
vades the epistle. At the same time many 
warnings and admonitions are introduced that 
are appropriate to all times and places. The 
epistle is especially noted for the most elaborate 
lesson on the control of the tongue that is to 
be found in the Bible. It also touches briefly 

1. See note on p. 114. 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 125 

the subject of justification, showing that while, 
as Paul so abundantly teaches, we are not jus- 
tified by works of law, yet those works which 
belong to the obedience of faith are necessary 
to justification. 

This epistle has always been admired for 
the smoothness and elegance of the style in 
which it is written, being superior in these 
particulars to any other New Testament docu- 
ment. 

2 . First Peter. Peter addresses in part the 
same disciples addressed by James. They are 
' ' sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Gal- 
atia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia M (i: i). 
These were provinces in the western and 
northern parts of what we call Asia Minor, and 
they were included in the more general Disper- 
sion addressed by James. It was by Paul and his 
fellow-laborers that these provinces had been 
evangelized. The main purpose of the epistle 
is the same as that of James, to encourage these 
brethren under the persecutions which they 
were enduring, and to prepare them for others 
that were in their future. Nothing could be 
better adapted to the purpose than the tender 
words and earnest appeals which the writer 
employs. The sentiment throughout reflects 
a maturity of Christian character and experi- 



126 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

ence which make Peter stand before the reader 
in a far better light than in the Gospels. One 
familiar with him there could hardly recognize 
him here — a striking proof of the transforming 
power of a Christian life. 

3. Second Peter, In this the apostle ad- 
dresses the same persons, and mainly for the 
same purpose (iii: 1,2). It is chiefly remarka- 
ble, however, for two predictions which it con- 
tains, the first in the second chapter respecting 
false teachers who were to arise in the church; 
and the second, in the third chapter, respecting 
the coming of Christ to judgment, and the 
destruction of the present heavens and earth. 

Many writers, both ancient and modern, 
have expressed doubts respecting the genuine- 
ness of this epistle; but their arguments have 
never succeeded in convincing the great mass 
of believers at any time. From its first to its 
last word it is worthy the pen of an apostle, 
and no epistle more positively affirms its own 
authorship. 

4. First John, This epistle is not addressed 
to any particular class of disciples, and it is 
therefore in the strictest sense catholic or gen- 
eral. After an opening paragraph, in which 
the writer sets forth very emphatically the full- 
ness of apostolic testimony to the resurrection 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 127 

of Jesus, the epistle is devoted to exhortations 
to shun sin, and incentives to the love of one 
another. The latter duty is more persistently 
set forth here than in any other portion of the 
New Testament; and this has led to styling the 
apostle John, The Apostle of Love. He was 
evidently a very old man when he wrote, for 
he addresses the disciples of all ages and classes 
as " Little children/ ' " My little children.' ' 
This places the epistle among the latest of the 
New Testament writings, but without fixing its 
date more definitely. There is some uncer- 
tainty whether it or the Gospel of John was the 
earlier. 

5. Second John. In this brief note, the 
writer designates himself by the title "The 
Elder.' ' A man, in order to be known by this 
designation, must have been well known for 
an age advanced beyond that of any others with 
whom he was associated. John outlived by 
very many years all of the other apostles; and 
before his death he was probably the oldest liv- 
ing member of the church. This would natu- 
rally cause everybody to recognize him by this 
title, and especially all those with whom he 
was intimate. The chief person addressed in 
this note, "the elect lady," was a lady not 
only in our American sense of the word, but 



128 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

in the aristocratic sense of the old world; that 
is, she was a woman of rank. Such is the 
meaning of the Greek word rendered lady. 

As this lady and her children were not 
only people of rank, but also of great zeal and 
hospitality, corrupt men, such as the people 
call " religious tramps" in our day, got to 
seeking her hospitality, in order to make use 
of the fact of having been her guest to impose 
themselves on others. It was the main pur- 
pose of this epistle to caution her on this point. 
The apostle expected to visit her shortly, and 
this accounts for the brevity of the epistle. In- 
cidentally, we learn that the epistle was writ- 
ten, not on parchment, but on paper. It was 
probably very soon copied on more enduring 
material or it might have perished. 

6. Third John. Another brief note from 
"The Elder/' addressed to a brother named 
Gaius, who seems to have been as much noted 
in the church as the " elect lady" of the second 
epistle, and for the same excellent qualities. 
He was particularly liberal in * ' forwarding on 
their way" such brethren as passed by him on 
their way to distant fields of labor. The pur- 
pose of the epistle was to commend him for this, 
and to warn him against a certain brother 
named Diotrephes, who " loved to have the pre- 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 129 

eminence," and had lifted himself up against 
even the authority of the apostle. He lets 
Gaius understand that he will deal with this 
reprobate according to his deserts when he 
visits that church. He has much to say to 
Gaius as he had to the " elect lady," but defers 
it un*il he can speak "face to face." 

These two personal notes are of great value 
in that they throw light at once upon the lov- 
ing relations existing between the aged apostle 
and his faithful co-laborers, both men and 
women, and upon the unruly conduct of uncon- 
verted or half converted men who even then 
had crept into the churches. This last circum- 
stance prevents us from being surprised or dis- 
heartened when we see the same thing in our 
own day. 

7. Jude. The real name of this writer/as 
we see from the first verse of the epistle, 
was Judas. The English translators probably 
adopted the improper name Jude, to prevent 
ignorant persons from thinking that it was 
Judas Iscariot. He calls himself u the brother 
of James/ ' and it is now commonly believed 
among scholars that he means, brother of that 
James who was a brother of the Lord. If this 
is correct, he also was a brother of the Lord ; 
but as the Lord had ascended to Heaven, it was 



130 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

more becoming to call himself brother of James 
than brother of the Lord. He declares it to be 
the purpose of his epistle to exhort the breth- 
ren to contend earnestly for the faith once for 
all delivered to the saints, in view of the fact 
that many bad men had crept into the churches 
who were corrupting both the faith and the 
morals of the brethren. His denunciations of 
these characters remind us of some of the simi- 
lar denunciations of bad men by the Old Testa- 
ment prophets, and of our Lord's denuncia- 
tions of the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. 
They resemble still more the second chapter of 
II Peter. He reminds the brethren that the 
apostles had predicted the appearance of such 
men, and that their coming was therefore not 
a matter of surprise. He closes with a bene- 
diction which is one of the most beautiful and 
appropriate to be found in any literature. 

8. The Apocalypse. The word apocalypse 
means revelation; but as other books as well 
as this contain revelations, there is a little con- 
fusion in calling this book the book of revela- 
tion; hence the preference among scholars for 
the untranslated title. There is still another 
objection to the printed title, " The Revelation 
of St. John the Divine;" for John was no 
more a saint, and no more a divine than any 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 131 

of the other apostles. The real title of the 
book, that is, the one given by the writer him- 
self, is found in the first verse; "The revela- 
tion of Jesus Christ which God gave him to 
show unto his servants, even the things which 
must shortly come to pass; and he went and 
signified it by his angel unto his servant John, 
who bore witness of the word of God, and of 
the Testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all 
things that he saw." As it was intended to 
show " things which must shortly come to 
pass," its contents must be in the main pro- 
phetic. 

This fully stated title is followed by a 
salutation to the "Seven churches of Asia/' 
similiar to the usual salutation of the epistles, 
and this is by a doxology. Then the main 
body of the book opens with an account of 
the appearance to John on the island of Pat- 
mos, of the Lord Jesus himself in glory. The 
Lord commands him to write what he dictates, 
and there follow seven brief epistles from the 
Lord to the seven churches of Asia. The 
word Asia means the Roman province of 
which Ephesus was the principal city. By 
consulting any good map the reader will find 
the seven churches, or rather the cities in 
which they were located, almost in a circle. 



132 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

If this book was written about the year 96, as 
Irenaeus, a writer of the second century affirms, 
Jesus had now been in heaven about sixty- 
two years, and these seven churches had been 
in existence nearly forty years. 1 After the 
experience of this long period the Lord dic- 
tates a letter to each of them to let them know 
how he regarded their conduct since they were 
planted, and to give them warnings and exhor- 
tations for the future. When the epistle to 
each was publicly read to the assembled mem- 
bers, the occasion must have been one never 
to be forgotten. In reading them we should 
keep in mind a comparison with our own con- 
gregation, and so far as the conditions are 
similar we should take to ourselves the same 
warnings, or commendations, as the case may 
be. 

After writing the words of the seven epistles 
as they fell from the lips of the Lord, John saw 
in a vision a door opened in heaven, and at the 
bidding of a voice he was caught up through 
it, and beheld a vision of the glory of God far 
transcending any vouchsafed before to any 



1. Many scholars believe the date of the apocalypse to have 
been abont 68 A. D., shortly after the Neronian persecution, and 
during the earlier stages of the Jewish war, which culminated in the 
fall of Jerusalem (70 A. D. ). This would make the apocalypse the 
earliest of the writings of John.-- W. 



THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES. 133 

prophet or apostle. Then followed a vision of 
a book sealed with seven seals, which no one 
in heaven was found worthy to unseal except 
"The Lion of the Tribe of Judah," a well 
known title of our Lord Jesus Christ. When 
he took the book in his hand great glory was 
ascribed to him by all the inhabitants of heaven; 
and as he proceeded to open the seven seals 
there followed the opening of each a wonderful 
symbolic vision portending something to occur 
on the earth (iv: i-vii: 17). When the seventh 
seal was opened seven angels stood forth with 
seven trumpets in their hands. They sounded 
their trumpets one by one, and there followed 
as many startling events (viii: i-xi: 19). The 
rest of the book (xii-xxii) is filled with a 
series of visions of quite a different character 
and too elaborate for description here, all ter- 
minating with a vision of the final judgment 
and of the New Jerusalem in which the saints 
are to dwell in the presence of God forever. 
Thus the Bible, which began with a vision of 
the creation of the present heavens and earth, 
in which sin was born and the Redeemer from 
sin was crucified, closes with a vision of a new 
heaven and a new earth where those redeemed 
from sin out of every nation, family and tongue, 
shall live perpetually in righteousness and bliss. 



134 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

The promise to Abraham has never been lost 
sight of since it was first announced in Ur of 
the Chaldees, and it is now fulfilled by the 
blessing which comes upon men of all nations 
through Abraham's seed. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

A BRIEF REVIEW. 

The student who has followed us through 
this little book can now look back and see the 
Bible as no one can see it who has not pursued 
a similiar course of study. He can plainly see, 
that there was a long period, that from Adam 
to Moses, when no part of our Bible was in 
existence, but when faithful men served God 
as best they could without a book to guide 
them. This period is called the Patriarchal Age 
of the World; and the system of religious faith 
and practice then in force, the Patriarchal Dis- 
pensation of Religion. The only established 
rites were sacrifice and prayer, until in Abra- 
ham's family circumcision was added. Every 
head of the family acted as a priest for his own 
household. They were not without such a 



A BRIEF REVIEW. 135 

knowledge of God's will as justified speaking 
of his " commandments, his statutes, and his 
law." (Gen. xxvi: 5). These must have been 
very simple and elementary compared with the 
legislation which followed; yet under them 
were developed such men of faith as Abel, 
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job and others. If 
we wish to know what the Patriarchal religion 
was, we look for it to the book of Genesis and 
the book of Job as our chief sources of infor- 
mation; and secondarily to remarks on the sub- 
ject of that religion to be found here and there 
in other books; but no one with any knowledge 
of the Bible would look there to find how to 
become a Christian and to live the life which 
Christ now requires. 

The reader can see, in the second place, that 
the form of religion instituted by God through 
Moses began with that prophet and continued 
until the public ministry of Christ. Under it 
many rites and ceremonies were added to the 
primitive prayer and sacrifice, and a new priest- 
hood was appointed, the privilege of offering 
sacrifice, except under extraordinary circum- 
stances, being limited to Aaron and his sons, 
and the places of offering being limited to those 
in which God would " place his name," or 
would appoint as the proper place from to time 



136 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

/ 

time. This was the Jewish dispensation, and 
it intervened between the Patriarchal and the 
Christian. If, then, one desires to know what 
religious ordinances characterized the Jewish 
religion, or what, in any particular, a man had 
to do to please God under that dispensation, 
he must go to the law of Moses, and to the 
examples of good men set forth in other Old 
Testament books than Job and Genesis. The 
ideas of God and of duty which regulated the 
lives of good men then are in the main the 
same which should regulate ours; but, as we 
have seen, there were many differences, senti- 
ments and acts that were then thought to be 
right being known by us to be wrong. We 
connot therefore take the teachings and exam- 
ples of the Old Testament books as our guide, 
except so far as they agree with what we are 
taught in the New. 

In the third place, the reader can see that 
the New Testament introduces an order of 
things in the service of God that is in many re- 
spects entirely new. It requires faith in Jesus 
Christ, which was not required before ; and the 
baptism which it requires, is unknown to the 
Old Testament. Remission of sins is offered 
to the penitent in the name of Jesus, churches 
are organized for worship and instruction, the 



A BRIEF REVIEW. 137 

death of the Lord is commemorated by a new 
ordinance styled the Lord's supper ; preachers 
are sent out everywhere to bring sinners to re- 
pentance and obedience ; and a purer system of 
morals than was ever known on earth before is 
enjoined on all men. Finally, the hope of 
heaven and the fear of hell are held out before 
men in a clear light unknown before. All this 
is the result of having now a new high priest 
who has taken the place of Aaron's sons, and 
a new sacrifice for sins in his death as our 
atonement. He has been made the head of all 
things for the church, and the judge of the liv- 
ing and the dead. 

If now a man under the present dispensa- 
tion wishes to know what to believe in order to 
be saved, and where to find the evidence on 
which to rest his faith, he must go, not to Gen- 
esis, to Leviticus, to the Psalms, or to the 
Prophets, where he would learn only Patri- 
archalism or Judaism, but to the four Gospels 
which were written that we may believe that 
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believ- 
ing we may obtain life through him (John xxi: 
20, 21.) After being thus led to believe in 
Jesus, we must next read the book of Acts, 
which was written to teach us how believers 
were brought into the churches, receiving the 



138 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

forgiveness of their sins and a place among the 
redeemed. Here we find the cases of conver- 
sion which were directed by the inspired apos- 
tles, and were put on record as models for men 
in all time to come. Having complied with the 
requirements here found, and become disciples 
of Christ in the full sense of the word, the 
epistles are next studied that a fuller knowl- 
edge may be obtained of the duties and privi- 
leges that pertain to a Christian life, and a more 
profound knowledge of the great principles of 
the divine government in accordance with 
which a sinner has attained to a condition so 
exalted. 

During the course of these studies the 
young disciple will have caught many glimpses 
of the glory and bliss yet to be revealed in the 
faithful, and on reading the last book of the 
Bible he sees broader and grander visions of 
the heavenly glory than he could have con- 
ceived before; and although many of the visions 
of rapture and of terror which pass before him 
are but imperfectly understood, he realizes all 
the more from this that the final fate of the 
wicked on the one hand, is wretched beyond 
conception, and that the bliss and glory of 
the saints rises far above the reach of human 
thought while in the flesh. Thus ends the 



A BRIEF REVIEW. 139 

book of God; and thus will end the life of 
every one who patiently learns its heavenly 
lessons and faithfully follows its infallible 
guidance. 



QUESTIONS. 



ChapTKR I. Define, as to origin and use, the 
words Bible, Testament, Scriptures, Oracles. 

Chapter II. What are the names and number 
of books in the Penteteuch? the historical group? 
the poetic pr wisdom gioup ? the prophetic division? 

Chapter III. i. In what language was the most 
of the Old Testament written ? 2. What was the earli- 
est means of multiplying the Scriptures? 3. How 
might mistakes occur? 4. What method was em- 
ployed to prevent this ? 5. What change was effected 
by printing? 6. What proof that we have the genu- 
ine books of the Old Testament? 

Chapter IV. (a) Genesis. 1. How did the first 
Old Testament book receive its present name? 2. 
With what do the first eleven chapters deal? 3. 
What single character is next described ? 4. Why is 
Abraham important in the history? 5. What prom- 
ises were made to Abraham ? 6. What descendants 
of Abraham are described in the remaining part of 
Genesis? 7. How long a period is covered by the 
events of this book ? 

(b) Exodus. 1. What was the condition of Israel 
in Egypt ? 2. What gives the book its title ? 3. 
How and by whom were they delivered ? 4. Describe 
the giving of the law and the building of the Taber- 
nacle? 



QUESTIONS. 141 

(c) Leviticus, i. To what subject is this book 
devoted ? 2. How did it receive its name ? 3. What 
kinds of sacrifice are enumerated in it? 

(d) Numbers. 1. How is this title appropriate to 
the book ? 2. How long and at what places were the 
people in the wilderness? 3. What nations were 
conquered ? 4. What is recorded of Balaam ? 

(e) Deuteronomy. 1. Meaning of the title? 2. 
Why given ? 3. Where is the scene laid ? 4. What 
were the cities of refuge ? 5. What is the substance 
of the blessings and curses? 6. What events were 
connected with the death of Moses ? 

Make a list of the qualities in God's nature which 
were most impressively revealed by the experiences 
of this period. 

Chapter V. (a) Joshua. 1. Why is this book so 
named? 2. What is the theme of the book? 3. Make 
a list of the battles recorded. 4. A list of the mira- 
cles. 5. Compare the character of Joshua with that 
of Moses in five particulars. 

(b) Judges. 1. From what does the book take its 
name ? 2. What was the condition of the country as 
to (a) government^ (b) relation of the Israelites to the 
Canaanites, (c) morals and religion ? 3. How many 
Judges are described ? 4. From what tribes do they 
come? 5. What did they accomplish ? 6. How long 
a period is covered by this book? 

(c) Ruth. 1. With what book is this closely con- 
nected and yet in striking contrast ? 2. What are the 
leading features of the narrative? 3. What were its 
purposes ? 

(d) First Samuel. 1. Describe Samuel's parent- 
age, early life, call and the prophecy regarding Eli's 
house. 2. What events led to Eli's death ? 3. How 
was the first king chosen? 4. What were the leading 



142 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 



elements in his character? 5. Describe the decline 
of Saul and the rise of David. 6. Analyze Samuel's 
character and influence in seven particulars. 

(e) Second Samuel. 1. Did Samuel write these 
books? 2. Who are the leading characters in this 
book? 3. What were the leading events in David's 
life ? 4. What were the consequences of Davids great 
sin? 5. What literary activity was begun during this 
period? 6. What prophets are mentioned? 

Chapter VI. 1. How was Solomon seated on the 
throne? 2. What was his choice? 3. What was the 
chief event of his reign ? 4. What were the charac- 
teristics of Solomon's reign as to (1) prosperity, (2) 
extent of dominion, (3) commerce, (4) court splendor, 
(5) taxation, (6) literary activity? 5. What was the 
sin of Solomon's later years ? 6. What was the cause 
of the division in the kingdom ? 

Chapter VII. 1. What two kingdoms followed 
the united kingdom of Solomon? 2. In what books 
is this part of the history recorded? 3. What false 
worship did Jeroboam establish ? 4. Name the kings 
of the Northern Kingdom (Israel). 5. Those of the 
Southern (Judah). 6. What great prophet arose? 7. 
What marriage reconciled the two kingdoms ? 8. De- 
scribe the characteristics of (1) Ahab, (2) Jezebel, (3) 
Jehoshaphat, (4) Athaliah, (5) Jehu, (6) Elijah, (7) 
Elisha. 9. What heathen worship prevailed in the 
Northern Kingdom ? 10. What descendant of Jehu 
enjoyed the most prosperous reiern? 11. What for- 
eign wars were waged during all this time? 12. 
What prophets . lived in the time of Jeroboam II ? 
13. Describe the decline and fall of Israel. 14. In 
what year and by whom was it overthrown ? 

Chapter VIII. 1. In what books is the story of 
the surviving kingdom of Judah told ? 2. What was 



QUESTIONS. 143 

the character of the reign of (i) Jotham, (2)Ahaz, 
(3) Hezekiah, (4) Manasseh, (5) Josiah? 3. What 
may be said of the date and prophetic work of (1) 
Isaiah, (2) Jeremiah? 4. What were the occasion and 
character of the reformation under Josiah ? 5. What 
was its success ? 

Chapter IX. 1. What was the date of Micah? 
(See list of prophets in appendix). 2. What were the 
subjects on which he spoke ? 3. Against what city 
did Nahum speak ? 4. Date and theme of Habakkuk's 
prophecy? 5. The subject of his prayer ? 6. Date of 
Zephaniah and his relation to the reformation of 
Josiah? 7. Against what people did Obadiah speak, 
and for what crime ? 8. Where and when did Eze- 
kiel live ? 9. Name some of symbols and visions of 
this book. 10. With what especially does the clos- 
ing part deal? 11. What kind of a scourge does 
Joel describe ? 12. What beautiful prophecy does he 
record ? 

Chapter X. (a) Job. 1. How are the so-called 
prophetical books to be classified ? 2. What is the 
theme of the book of Job? 3. What are its charac- 
ters ? 4. Name some of its most striking descriptions. 
5. Is the book to be regarded as (1) fiction, (2) literal 
history, or (3) poetic elaboration of a real experience ? 

(b) Psalms. 1. How many books of Psalms are 
there? 2. Who was the author of many of these 
Psalms ? 3. Do the Psalms come from one period of 
the history, or several? 4. What events in David's 
life may have been the occasion for Psalms ? 5. What 
other authors are named in the book? 6. Of what 
are the Psalms the record ? 

(c) Proverbs. 1. What is the character of the 
book of Proverbs ? 2. What are its leading divisions ? 
3. What was Solomon's relation to it ? 4. What other 



144 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

persons are named as authors or collectors? 5. What 
is the chief value of the book ? 

(d) Ecclesiastes. 1. What is the meaning of the 
title ? 2. Who is made the subject of the book ? 3. 
What may be said of its authorship ? 4. What is the 
purpose of the book ? 

(e) Song of Songs. 1. What is the literary char- 
acter of this book ? 2. Who are the leading persons? 
3. What different views may be given of its value and 
its right to a place in the Bible ? 

Chapter XI. 1. What is meant by the exile? 
2. Who was Daniel ? 3. How did he come to be in 
Babylon ? 4. What are the leading events recorded 
in the book ? 5. What was the purpose of their nar- 
ration ? 6. With what events does the book of Esther 
deal ? 7. What are its leading characters ? 8. What 
was probably the purpose ? 9. What other literary 
materials belong to the same period ? 

Chapter XII. (a) Ezra. 1. Of what is this 
book the continuation? 2. What events does it re- 
cord? 3. What great enterprise engaged the people 
after the return from exile ? 4. What hindrances 
arose ? 5. Under whose direction was the Temple 
completed ? 6. How was the law enforced ? 

(b) Nehemiah. 1. With what other writing was 
the book originally connected? 2. What were Nehe- 
miah's office and experience in Persia ? 3. What did 
he do after arrival in Jerusalem? 4. Describe his 
visit to Babylon and return. 

(c) Haggai. 1. What were the date and duration 
of this prophet's work ? 2. To what enterprise did 
he encourage the people? 3. What did he say were 
the results of their failure in this duty ? 

(d) Zechariah. 1. How was the work of this 
prophet related to that of Haggai ? 2. With what 



QUESTIONS. 145 

other themes than the rebuilding of the Temple is the 
book concerned ? 

(e) Malachi. i. What is the date of this prophet? 

2. What sins does he rebuke? 3. What promises and 
1 predictions does he make? 

What are the Apocryphal books of the Old Testa- 
ment? (See list in Appendix). What is their value ? 
With what period do they deal ? 

Chapter XIII. 1. What are the divisions of the 
New Testament? 2. How many books in each? (See 
introduction.) 3. What are the characteristics of (1) 
the Gospels, (2) Acts, (3) the Epistles, (4) the Apoca- 
lypse ? 

Chapter XIV. (a) Matthew. 1. What is known 
of the author? 2. How does he introduce Jesus ? 3. 
Why does he make use of the Old Testament? 4. 
With what part of Jesus' work does the book largely 
deal ? 5. What are the general divisions of the book ? 
6. Make a list of its (1) discourses, (2) parables, (3) 
miracles. 7. To whom was it especially addressed? 

(b) Mark. 1. What is known of Mark? 2. 
From what apostle is it probable he received direc- 
tions in the preparation of the book? 3. How is 
this indicated? 4. What was the purpose of the 
book? 5. Which element in Jesus' work is largely 
recorded ? 6. To what type of mind would the book 
specially recommend itself? 7. Compare the list of 
miracles with Matthew's. 

(c) Luke. 1. How account for the similarities 
found in these three Gospels? 2. The differences? 

3. Where do all these Gospels lay the scene of most 
of Jesus' work? 4. What are the divisions of Luke's 
Gospel? 5. What do we know of the author ? 6. To 
whom is the book addressed? 7. Compare the para- 
bles and discourses with those in Matthew. 8. What 

10 



146 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

is the probable date of its composition ? (See table 
in appendix. ) 

(d) John. i. By what name are the first three 
Gospels known? 2. Why? 3. How does John's dif- 
fer from them ? 4. What data are given by John, but 
omitted by the others ? 5. What are the chai acter- 
istics of John's Gospel? 6. What is its value among 
the books of the New Testament? 

(e) Acts. 1. Who is its author? 2. Probable 
date? (See table in appendix). 3 What forms the 
theme of this book ? 4. Give an outline of its leading 
events. 5. With what apostle's work is ihe first part 
concerned? 6. The second part? 7. Make a list of 
its (1) leading persons, (2) discourses, (3) miracles, (4) 
places. 7, What were the requirements for member- 
ship in the church as disclosed by this book? 

Chapter XV. 1. In what particulars did Paul 
surpass the other apostles ? 2. What was the relation 
which Paul bore to Christ and Christianity ? 3. What 
determined the order of the Epistles? 

(a) Romans. 1. How many chapters in this book? 
2. At what period in Paul's life was it written ? (See 
outline in appendix). 3. What is the great subject of 
the epistle? 4. What gave rise to the necessity for 
such an epistle? 5. In what chapters of the book are 
to be found (1) a terrible sketch of the sin of heathen- 
ism, (2) the grounds of Justification by Faith, (3) the 
confidence of Paul, (4) the great lessons of practical 
Christian life? 

(b) First Corinthians. 1. What were the date 
and place at which this book was written? 2. What 
were the facts regarding the founding of the church 
at Corinth ? 3. What is shown to have been the con- 
dition of the church in the matter of (1) divis- 
ions, (2) disorders at the ford's Supper, (3) J other 



QUESTIONS. 147 

troubles in the church ? 4. What is the most beauti- 
ful chapter in the book, perhaps in the Bible? 

(c) Second Corinthians, 1. How long after the 
first letter to Corinth was this sent? 2. What may 
be learned from it regarding Paul's opposers? 3. In 
what respect is this the most personal epistle Paul 
ever sent ? 4. Were there other epistles to the church 
at Corinth now lost ? 

(d) Galatians, 1. Where were the Galatian 
churches ? 2. What may be said as to the date and 
place of this writing ? 3. For what does Paul reprove 
the Galatians ? 4. How is salvation to be secured ? 

(e) Ephesians. 1. What doubts may be thrown 
on the title of this book? 2. When was the book 
written? 3. What is the general theme? 4. In what 
chapter is found ( 1) the statement as to the means of 
progress in the Christian life, (2) the model prayer, 
(3) the description of the Christian armor? 

(f) Philippians. 1. Where is the account of the 
planting of this church? 2. Where was Paul at the 
time of writing ? 3. What was the occasion of its be- 
ing written? 4. What persons was Paul going to 
send to Philippi ? 5. Where is the passage regarding 
(1) the humiliation of Christ, (2) Paul's thoughts of 
life and death, (3) the model discipline? 

(g) Colossians. 1. What were the four epistles 
of the first imprisonment of Paul? 2. Where was 
Colosse ? 3. What are some of the leading character- 
istics of this epistle ? 

(h) First Thessalonians. 1. How does this epis- 
tle stand in the order of Paul's writings? 2. What 
events had transpired at Thessalonica ? 3. What 
had occurred to trouble some of the disciples 
there ? 4. What is the teaching of Paul on the sub- 
ject of the resurrection? 






148 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

(j) Second Thessalonians. i. What are the indi- 
cations as to time? 2. What theme is uppermost in 
the epistle? 3. What are the practical instructions? 

(k) First Timothy. 1. Who was Timothy? 2. 
Where is he mentioned in Acts? 3. When was this 
epistle written ? 4. What was the work of Timothy ? 
5. What workers in the church may especially profit 
by the teachings of this epistle ? 

(1) Second Timothy. 1. What is Paul's condition 
at this writing ? 2. How does this epistle s*and in 
the order of Paul's letters ? 3. What does the Apos- 
tle say regarding his approaching death ? 4. What 
request did he make of Timothy ? 

(m) Titus. 1. What is known of Titus? 2. In 
what duties does the epistle instruct him ? 

(n) Philemon. 1. To which group of Paul's 
epistles does this belong? 2. What persons are men- 
tioned ? 3. What is the request made of Philemon ? 

(o) Hebrews. 1. Is this regarded as an epistle 
of Paul? 2. Who have been suggested as possible 
authors? 3. What is the probable date? 4. How 
does it represent the relation of Christianity to Juda- 
ism? 5. Where in it is to be found (1) the compari- 
son of Aaron's priesthood with that of Christ, (2) the 
statement regarding Melchizedek, (3) the roll call of 
the heroes of faith ? 

Chapter XVI. 1. What is meant by Catholic 
epistles? 2. How many are there? 3. Why are II 
John and III John included in this list ? 

(a) James. 1. Which James was the author of 
this book? 2. To whom is the book addressed? 3. 
What was the probable date of its composition ? 4. 
What was the purpose ? 5. What does it say regard- 
ing (1) the tongue, (2) pure religion, (3) faith and 
works ? 



QUESTIONS. 149 

(b) First Peter, i. Where did the Christians 
addressed in this epistle live? 2. What does the 
apostle say regarding (1) the Word of God, (2) the cor- 
nerstone, (3) baptism, (4) probability of persecution ? 

(c) Second Peter. 1. What does the writer say 
of things to be l< added?" 2. Of the transfiguration 
of Christ ? 3. What warnings are uttered ? 

(d) First John. 1. What is the Order of John's 
writings? (See table in the appendix). 2. What is 
the chief duty set forth in this epistle ? 3. How does 
John address his readers? 4. Enumerate §mz points 
in the teachings or this epistle? 

(e) Second John. 1. To whom was this letter ad- 
dressed? 2. For what purpose ? 

(f) Third John. 1. What kind of a man does 
the epistle show Gaius to have been ? 2. What is 
the value of these two brief letters ? 

(g) Jude. 1. Who was the author of this writing? 
2. What was the object of the epistle ? 3. Why was 
this needed ? 

(h) The Apocalypse. 1. What is the meaning of 
this word? 2. In what place among John's writings 
does the book probably come? 3. Where was the 
author? 4. What seems to have been the purpose of 
the book ? 5. What relation do the scenes and visions 
of the book bear to the events of the time ; such as 
the persecution of the Christians by Nero and the 
destruction of Jerusalem ? 6. What is John's confi- 
dence as to the final issue of the struggles between 
the forces of evil and the church ? 

Chapter XVII. 1. What characterized the patri- 
archal age? 2. The Mosaic age? 3. The Christian 
age ? 4. What is the right division of the Scriptures ? 
5. What is the purpose of (1) the Gospels, (2) Acts, 
(3) the Epistles, (4) the Apocalypse? 



APPENDIX. 



The following material is added for convenient reference 
on the part of the reader. It is purely outline in character, 
treating in brief terms of subjects on which every Bible stu- 
dent desires hints. Much other material might have been 
added, but it was not thought desirable to widen the bounds 
of this part of the book— W. 



[. Early Translations of the Scrip- 
tures. 

i. The Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Old 
Testament into Greek. Begun about 250 B. C. 

2. Translations of portions of the Old Testament 

into Greek by Aquila and Theodotian, 2nd cen- 
tury A. D. 

3. The Targums, free translations of the Old Testa- 

ment into the popular language, the Aramaic , 
2nd century A. D. 

4. The Old Latin Bible, Old and New Testaments 

(2nd century A. D. ) out of which came the Vul- 
gate of Jerome, the text used in the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

5. An Ancient Syriac Version, 2nd century. 

6. Two Egyptian Versions in different dialects, 3rd 

century. 



APPENDIX. 151 

7. Peshito-Syriac, 4th century. 

8. Gothic Version, 4th century. 

9. Ethiopic Version, 4th century. 

10. Armenian Version, 5th century. 

11. Translations of the Scriptures into 

English. 

1. A paraphrase in poetry by Caedmon of Whitby, 

680 A. D. 

2. Two versifications of the Psalms, about 700 A. D. 

3. The Gospel of John by Venerable Bede, finished 

May 27, 735 A. D. 

4. Exodus and the Psalms, Alfred the Great, 901 

A. D. 

5. Two interlinear translations of portions of the 

Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate, about 950 
A. D. 

6. A translation of the greater part of the Bible into 

Norman French, 1260. 

7. Four versions of the Psalms, and parts of the 

New Testament, 1350. 

8. John Wyclif; the first complete translation into 

English from the Vulgate; New Testament com- 
pleted in 1380, the Old Testament in 1384. 

9. Tyndale; the first translation from the original 

Hebrew and Greek, 1525- 1536. 

10. Coverdale; the first complete Bible ever printed. 

It was based on the Vulgate, Luther's German 
Bible, and Tyndale, 1535. 

11. Matthew's (really Roger's) Bible. The first 

authorized version, 1537. 

12. Cranmer's, or the Great Bible, 1539. 



152 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

13. The Geneva Bible, published by the English ex- 

iles in Geneva, the first Bible with chapter and 
verse divisions, based on the Vulgate, 1557-1560. 

14. The Bishops' Bible, 1564-1568. 

15. The Authorized, or King James Version, 161 1. 

16. The Revised Version; New Testament, 1881; Old 

Testament, 1884. 

III. Extra Canonical Books. 

In addition to the books that have been generally 
recognized among Protestants as worthy of a place 
in the Canon, or collection of Sacred books, which 
taken as a whole makes up the Bible, there are cer- 
tain other books which had their origin in the period 
beginning after the time of Malachi, and closing 
with the first Christian century. They are called the 
apochraphal books of the Old Testament, and while 
regarded by the Roman Catholic Church as having a 
place in the Canon, and by many Protestants as con- 
taining much profitable reading, their value is clearly 
below that of the books included in our Canon. They 
are as follows : 

I Maccabees. Prayer of the Three Chil- 

li Maccabees. dren > Susanna, and Bel 

Tl1 j. fVl and the Dragon, apoch- 

J uaiul - raphal additions to the 

Tobit. Book of Daniel. 

Psalms of Solomon. The Prayer of Manasseh. 

Bsdras. The Wisdom of Solomon. 

Baruch. The Epistle of Jeremiah. 

Ecclesiasticus,or the Wis- 
dom of Jesus the Son 
of Sirach. 



APPENDIX. 153 

A similar class of literature grew up subsequently 
to the writing of the New Testament and connected 
with it. Among books of this class may be named 
the following : 

The Apocraphal Gospels. 

The Shepherd of Hermes. 

The Epistles of Clement to the Corinthians. 

Epistle of Barnabas. 

Paul and Thecla. 

IV. Outunk of the History of Israel. 

The purpose of this outline is to give only the 
general features of the History of Israel and their 
dates as nearly as they can be ascertained. 
i. Patriarchal Period : Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, 
The Bondage. ( 2000-1500 B. C. are the approxi- 
mate limits of this period. ) 

2. Exodus, Conquest and Establishment in Canaan : 

Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel (1500-1050 
B.C). 

3. The United Kingdom : Saul, David, Solomon, 

(1050-937 B.C.) 

4. Israel and Judah. 

a. Revolt of the Ten Tribes (937 B. C.) 

b. Reformation under Jehu (842 B. C. ) 

c. Destruction of Samaria (721 B. C.) 

d. Captivity of Judah (586 B. C.) 

5. The Exile in Babylon (586-534 B. C.) 

6. The Restoration : Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Ezra, Neh- 

emiah (534-400 B. C.) 



154 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

a. Temple founded (534 B. C.) 

b. Work stopped (522 B. C.) 

c. Temple completed (515 B. C. ) 

d. Ezra's arrival (459 B. C.) 

e. Arrival of Nehemiah (433 B. C. ) 

f. His second arrival (425 B. C.) 

7. Greek and Syrian rule," (333-166 B. C.) 

a. Greek rule, Alexander (333-320 B. C.) 

b. Egyptian rule, the Ptolemies (320-314 B. C.) 

c. Syrian rule, the Selucidae (314-166 B. C.) 

8. The Maccabees; the struggle for liberty; Judas 

Maccabaeus, Jonathan, Simon, John Hyrcanus, 
Aristobulus, Alexander Jannaeus, Alexandra 
(166 63 B.C.) 

9. Roman Dominion (63 B. C.-70 A. D.) 

a. Jerusalem taken by Pompey (63 B. C.) 

b. Maccabean governors (63-47 B. C.) 

c. Antipater, Roman Procurator (46-41 B. C.) 

d. Herod the Great, his son, tributary king, 
' (40-4 B.C.) 

e. Herods and Procurators (4 B. C.-70 A. D.) 

f. Destruction of Jerusalem by Romans and 

end of Jewish state (70 A. D.) 

V. Leading Prophets of the Oi<d Testa- 
ment. 

The approximate dates at which they lived are as 
follows: Moses (1500 B. C); Samuel (1050); Elijah 
(875); Elisha (850); Jouah (770); Amos (760); Hosea 
(740); Isaiah (725); Micah (715); Nahum {660); Zeph- 



APPENDIX. 155 

aniah (640^; Habbakuk (610); Jeremiah (600); Obadiah 
(586); Ezekial (585); Daniel (55°);Haggai (525); Zech- 
ariah (525); Malachi (475); Joel (400?). 

VI. Important Events in the I*ife of 
Christ. 

1. Preparatory Period (4 B. C.-26 A. D.) 

a. Birth of Jesus (4 B. C.) 

b. Jesus in the Temple (8 A. D.) 

c. Life in Nazareth (8-26 A. D.) 

2. Early Ministry, Judea (26-27 A « D.) 

a. Baptism, Temptation, First Disciples. 

b. Visit to Cana and Capernaum. 

c. First Passover, Nicodemus. 

3. Period of popular favor ; Galilee (27-29 A. D. ) 

a. John imprisoned ; Samaria, Galilee. 

b. Rejection at Nazareth. 

c. Twelve chosen. 

d. Sermon on the Mount. 

e. Tours through Galilee; Parables and 

Miracles. 

f. Five thousand fed. The Bread of Life. 

4. Period of Opposition; Galilee, Judea and Perea 

(29-30 A. D.) 

a. The Great Confession; the Transfiguration. 

b. Departure from Galilee; the Seventy sent 

out. 

c. Lazarus raised; retirement to Perea. 



156 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

d. Return to Jerusalem; teachings on the way; 
Jericho, Zacheus; arrival at Bethany. 

5. The Final Week ; Jerusalem (30 A. D.) 

a. Triumphal entry. 

b. Teaching and controversies in the Temple. 

c. Greeks at the feast; Discourse on the I^ast 

Days. 

d. The Passover ; the I^ast Supper ; Gethsemane. 

e. Arrest; examination; crucifixion; burial. 

6. Resurrection and Ascension (30 A. D.) 

a. Resurrection ; appearances to the Disciples. 

b. Meetings with the Disciples in Galilee ; 

forty days. 

c. The Ascension. 

VII. Outune of the Journeys and La- 
bors of the Apostle Paul. 

1. Preparation. 

( 1 ) Birth and Early Life at Tarsus, Acts xxi : 

39 ; xxii : 3. 

(2) Education at Jerusalem, Acts xxii: 3. 

(3) Saul the Persecutor, Acts viii 11-3; xxii : 4 ; 

xxvi: 11 ; Gal. i: 13, 23; I Cor. xv: 9 ; Phil, 
iii : 6 ; I Tim. i : 13. 

(4) The Conversion, Acts ix: 3-19: xxii: 6-16 ; 

xxvi: 1 2-] 8. (A. D. 35.) 

(5) Arabia, Gal. i: 17. 

(6) The return to Tarsus (38-43 A. D. ) 



APPENDIX. 157 

(a) Damascus, Acts ix : 19-25 ; (b) Jerusalem, 
Acts ix : 26-30 ; Gal. i: 18 ; ( c) Tarsus, Gal. 
i: 21 ; Acts ix: 30. 

2. The First Period of Missionary Activity (44-51 A.D.) 

(1) Antioch the second center of Christianity) 

Acts xi: 19-26. 

(2) Famine in Jerusalem, Relief from Antioch, 

Acts xi: 27-xii: 25. 

(3) The First Missionary Journey, with Barna- 

bas ; Cyprus ; Antioch of Pisidia ; Iconium ; 
Lystra ; Derbe ; the return, Acts xiii : 1- 
xiv:28. 

(4) The Consultation at Jerusalem, Acts xv : 

1-35. 

3. The Second Period of Missionary Activity (51-54 

A. D.) 

(1) Separation of Paul and Barnabas, Acts xv: 

36-40. 

(2) The second Missionary Journey, with Silas; 

Galatia ; Troas ; Philippi ; Thessalonica, 
Berea ; Athens, Acts xv: 41-xvii: 34. 

(3) Residence at Corinth, eighteen months, 

Acts xviii : 1-17. 

(4) I Thessalonians and II Thessalonians writ- 

ten during this stay in Corinth ( 52-53 A. D. ) 

(5) Return to Antioch via Bphesus and Jeru- 

salem, Acts xviii: 18-23. 

4. The Third Period of Missionary Activity ( A. D. 

54-58.) 

(1) Return to Ephesus from Antioch, Acts 
xviii : 23-xix: 1. 






158 A GUIDE TO BIBLE STUDY. 

(2) Galatians written (c. 55 A. D. ) 

(3) Residence in Ephesus three years, Acts 

xix: i-xx: 1. 

(4) I Corinthians written (A. D. 57.) 

(5) Journey via Troas to Macedonia, Acts xx: 

1, 2 ; II Cor. ii: 12, 13. 

(6) II Corinthians written (A. D. 57. ) 

(7) Second visit to Corinth, three months, Acts 

xx:2, 3. 

(8) Romans written at Corinth (A. D. 57 or 58.) 

(9) Return to Jerusalem via Troas, Miletus, 

Tyre, Csesarea, Acts xx: 3-xxi: 16. 

5. The Period of Imprisonment (58-63 A. D.) 

(1) Arrest in Jerusalem, Acts xxi: I7~xxiii:35. 

(Pentecost A. D. 58.) 

(2) Imprisonment in Caesarea, Acts xxiv: 1- 

xxvi:32. (A. D. 58-60.) 

(3) The Voyage to Rome, Acts xxvii: i-xxviii : 16. 

(4) Imprisoned in Rome, Acts xxviii: 16-31. 

(A. D. 61-63.) 

(5) Epistles of the First Roman Imprisonment; 

Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Ephe- 
sians (A. D. 62, 63 ) 

6. The Last Period ; Conjectural (A. D. 63-66.) 

(1) Probable release ; Journey to Spain (?). 

(2) Ephesus, Macedonia, Crete, Troas. 

(3) I Timothy and Titus written. 

(4) Second Arrest, and return to Rome. 

(5) II Timothy written. 

(6) Martyrdom. 






APPENDIX. 



159 



VIII. Chronological Order of the 
Books of the New Testament. 

While no arrangement of these books can be made 
with absolute confidence, the following dates are suffi- 
ciently reliable to serve the purpose of the Bible stu- 
dent. 



James, 50 A. D. 

I Thessalonians, 52-53. 

II Thessalonians, 52-53. 
Galatians, 55. 

I Corinthians, 57. 

II Corinthians, 57. 
Romans, 57-58. 
Philippians, 62-63. 
Colossians, 62-63. 
Philemon, 62-63. 
Ephesians, 62-63. 
Luke, 63. 

Acts, 64. 



I Timothy, 65. 
Titus, 65. 

II Timothy, 66. 
Mark, 66. 
Matthew, 67. 
Hebrews, 67. 

I Peter, 67-68. 

II Peter, 68. 
Jude, 68. 
Apocalypse, 68; 
John, c. 85. 
Epistles of John, 90-95. 



